Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

PRIVATE BILLS (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the Second Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

Westgate and Birchington Water Bill.

East Anglian Electricity Bill.

War Risks Associations (Distribution of Reserve Funds) Bill.

Bills committed.

PRIVATE BILLS [Lords],

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in respect of the following Bills, introduced pursuant to the provisions of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, and which the Chairman of Ways and Means had directed to originate in the House of Lords, they have certified that the Standing Orders have been complied with, namely:

North British and Mercantile Insurance Company, Limited [Lords] (Substituted Bill).

Scottish Provident Institution [Lords] (Substituted Bill).

MERCANTILE MARINE MEMORIAL BILL,

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 8th day of December, 1926, That, in the case of the following Bill, the Standing Orders,
which are applicable thereto, have not been complied with, namely:

Mercantile Marine Memorial Bill.

Report referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Corporation Bill (by Order),

Second Reading deferred till Tomorrow, at a Quarter-past. Eight of the Clock.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

BARLEY (IMPORTS).

Colonel Sir ARTHUR HOLBROOK: 2.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the total amount of barley imported into this country for the years 1924, 1925, and 1926?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister): The information is given on page 9 of the December, 1926, issue of the Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom.

MERCHANDISE MARKS ACT.

Mr. HARRIS: 3.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of applications he has received under the Merchandise Marks Act, 1926?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Seven applications for the issue of marking Orders have been received up to the present. The hon. Member will recollect that before referring an application to the Committee the Board must, under the Act, be satisfied that it is substantially representative. Two applications have also been received under Section 1.

Mr. HARRIS: Are we to understand, then, after all the money that has been spent, that only seven firms have thought fit to take advantage of the provisions of the Act?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: No, Sir, the hon. Member ought not to draw any such inference. Up to the moment seven applications have been received, but I have no reason to suppose that there will not be a considerable number of others.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: What commodities are there in addition to eggs and oatmeal?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I was not including eggs and oatmeal in this. Applications have also been received in respect of woven labels; gold and silver leaf; cab tyre sheathed cable; crepe paper; briar pipes, bowls and stems; shaving brushes; shaving sets and mirrors. In regard to some of these we are inquiring whether the application is representative or not. From inquiries which have been received it would be quite erroneous to suppose that that is at all an end of the list of likely applicants.

LACE (IMPORTS FROM MALTA).

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 4.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the value of lace imported from Malta for the year 1924 and the two subsequent years?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The recorded imports of lace of all kinds consigned from Malta were as follow: In 1924, nil: in 1925, £1,011; in 1926, £1,024.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Are we to understand that the figures for Maltese lace account for all the lace imported from Malta into the United Kingdom?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I should like notice of that question. I have given the Customs returns for consignments of lace from Malta. I imagine that that is, in fact, all Maltese lace, but I do not know, and I doubt whether I could find out.

1910.
1920.
1925.
1926.



Quantities Imported.



Gallons.
Gallons.
Gallons.
Gallons.


Crude Petroleum
187,318
4,180,128
569,082,169
538,239,606


Refined Petroleum:


Lamp Oils
138,828,483
160,951,946
141,649,425
201,950,966


Motor Spirit
55,049,210
206,910,704
404,834,226
562,176,619


Spirit other than Motor Spirit
239,948
13,911
6,061,029
2,921,130


Lubricating Oil
58,560,651
105,914,877
84,361,784
91,810,250


Gas Oil
57,507,131
53,564,775
72,652,528
117,042,798


Fuel Oil
34,363,276
347,771,044
334,489,850
398,443,393


Other Sorts
733,819
71,743
170,354
351,194


Total Refined
345,282,518
875,199,000
1,044,219,196
1,374,696,350


Total—Petroleum Imported
345,469,836
879,379,128
1,613,301,365
1,912,935,956

Mr. HARRIS: Is this lace subject to taxation?

Mr. SPEAKER: There is another question to the Treasury about that.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 48.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amount of revenue derived from Customs on lace imported into the United Kingdom from Malta during the year 1926?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Ronald McNeill): Particulars of the Customs revenue derived from lace imported from Malta are available only in so far as such lace is admitted at the preferential rate of duty. The amount of duty at the preferential rate received in the calendar year 1926 in respect of lace consigned from Malta was £173.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell ns how that compares with the imports for the previous year?

Mr. McNEILL: I could not say without notice.

OIL AND MOTOR SPIRIT (IMPORTS).

Mr. G. HALL: 5.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the total oil and motor spirit imports in the several ascertainable grades for the years 1910, 1920, 1925, and 1926, respectively?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: With the hon. Member's permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the particulars for which he asks.

Following are the particulars:

Oral Answers to Questions — SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES ACT.

CHEMICAL PRODUCTS.

Major CRAWFURD: 6.
asked the President of the Board of Trade why his Department is persistently referring applicants under Section 10 (5) of the Finance Act, 1926, for orders exempting key industry products from liability to duty under Part I of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921, on the grounds that they are not made in any part of His Majesty's Dominions in quantities which are substantial, having regard to the consumption of the articles for the time being in the United Kingdom, to certain chemical manufacturers in this country who are not in a position to offer the products in question of their own manufacture: and is he aware that lactic acid B.P. is an example of the action complained of?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Before an article can be exempted from duty under Section 10 (5) of the Finance Act, 1926, the Board must be satisfied not only that the article is not being made in His Majesty's Dominions, but also that there is no reasonable probability that it will be so made within a reasonable period. As regards the particular product mentioned in the question, applicants were given the name of a manufacturer who proposes to produce it in the near future, and is setting up the necessary plant for the purpose.

Major CRAWFURD: With regard to the first part of the answer, dealing with the probability of its being manufactured, is there a Permanent Committee of the Board of Trade which makes decisions as to probabilities?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: No, there is not a permanent Committee of the Board of Trade, but there is a permanent Board of Trade, and if a colleague of the hon. Member had been present to ask Question? I should have answered about that.

Mr. HARRIS: Would the right hon. Gentleman define more closely "the near future"? How many months or years?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The "near future" means the near future, and the prospect is drawing rapidly nearer, because this firm have, in fact, ordered
the plant, and the whole of the first consignment of the plant for the earlier process has been delivered and set up as one of the results of the Act.

Major CRAWFURD: That may be all right so far as lactic acid is concerned, but will the right hon. Gentleman go into the whole question?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Of course, not only will I go into it, but I have gone into it, and every single application received has been dealt with on its merits and an Order has been made.

Major CRAWFURD: 7.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he treats manufacturers who purchase imported chemicals of technical or commercial quality and purify them as being manufacturers of the purified or B. P. quality, the manufacture of which is protected under Part I of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1291; and, if not, will he direct his Department to grant exemption orders against all applications where such a position arises?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: No application has been made to me, under Section 10 (5) of the Finance Act, 1926, which involves consideration of the particular point to which the hon. Member refers. If, and when, such an application is made, it will be dealt with on its merits.

KEY INDUSTRY PRODUCTS.

Mr. FENBY: 1.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if, in view of the failure of his Department to deal with the large number of applications made since last August under Section 10 (5) of the Finance Act, 1926, for orders exempting key industry products from liability to duty under Part I of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921, on the ground that they are not made in the British Empire, he will set up a committee representative of manufacturing and consuming interests to deal with them so that consumers may be relieved at an early date from having to pay 33 ⅓ per cent. duty on products that have to be imported, as they are not made here, after six years of safeguarding?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: There has been no such failure as the hon. Member suggests. All the applications which have been received have been fully considered by the Board of Trade. An
Order under Section 10 (5) of the Finance Act, 1926, giving effect to the recommendations of the Board and exempting certain articles from duty, was made by the Treasury yesterday.

WAR PENSION (LIEUT. F. A. SUTTON).

Mr. BECKETT: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether General Frank Sutton is in receipt of any form of payment or pension from the British Government?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY of the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Lieut.-Colonel Stanley): I have been asked to answer this question. There is no officer recorded in my Department as General Frank Sutton, but if (as I understand from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War) the question relates to Lieutenant Francis Arthur Sutton, late Royal Engineers, this officer was wounded in Gallipoli. An award in respect of his wounds was made to him on retirement, and is still in force. I am informed, however, that no payment has been drawn since 30th September, 1925.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

DRILL HALL (PENICUIK, MIDLOTHIAN).

Mr. WESTWOOD: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he will be prepared to postpone for one year the calling up of the £200 bond, or security, which the War Office hold over the drill hall, Penicuik, Midlothian, providing efforts are made by the ex-service men who occupy the hall to raise sufficient money to purchase the bond?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): I have now heard that the trustees hope to raise the necessary funds to pay off the bond, and their solicitor has asked for the title deeds, which are accordingly being sent to him, to enable him to prepare the necessary discharge. I assume, therefore, that a period of grace is no longer required, and if it is, I hope the hon. Member will communicate with me.

RECRUITS (REGULATIONS).

Mr. SHORT: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for War the number of men passed fit for service and the number rejected as medically unfit during 1926; and the nature of the principal physical defects responsible for their rejection?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: As regards the first part of the question, figures for the recruiting year 1925–26 will be found on page 12 of the General Annual Report on the British Army for 1926. As regards the latter part, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement showing the numbers rejected for the principal physical defects.

Following is the statement:


MAIN CAUSES OF REJECTION FOR PHYSICAL UNFITNESS.



Number of Rejections.


(1) Diseases of the heart
2,194


(2) Diseases of the middle ear
1,887


(3) Loss or decay of many teeth
1,776


(4) Defects of the lower extremity
1,523


(5) Defective vision
1,317


(6) Flat feet
1,005


(7) Insufficient weight
949


(8) Under-chest measurement
657


(9) Varicocele
652


(10) Diseases of veins
554

QUARTERMASTER OFFICERS (COMPULSORY RETIREMENT).

Major MALONE: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that the regulation under which an officer of the quartermaster class, who has attained the rank of major but who is compulsorily retired under the age limit before he has served one complete year in the rank, is causing considerable hardship in many cases to such officers, whose promotion depends not, as in the case of other officers, on a vacancy in the rank, but on the completion of a specified period of service; that it is possible for an officer of this class to have served from 37 to 42 years, to have attained the rank of major, and yet, for the lack of a few days required to complete one year in the rank, to be retired with the retired pay granted to lieutenants and captains; that cases can be quoted where the higher rate of retired pay is lost by the inability to serve for one day to complete
the year; and that, in consequence, years of commissioned service, although ordinarily allowed to count for retired pay, are unproductive owing to the above-quoted regulation; and whether he is prepared to consider the matter, with a view to the removal of this hardship by amending the regulation, so that these officers shall be granted the retired pay of the rank in which they retire?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Captain Douglas King): I regret that I am unable to alter the decision given in the reply to my hon. and gallant Friend on 15th February. The fact that promotion is by time and not by establishment affords no ground for making an exception to the general rule.

Major MALONE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that men in this class, for the sake of one day's service, lose as much as £60 or £100 of pension, and does he consider that that is a proper thing?

Captain KING: They are under the same rules and regulations as all other officers in the Army.

Major MALONE: But they do not obtain their promotion till they are well advanced in years and in service.

Captain KING: I am afraid it is impossible to agree to the suggestion.

LONDON HOTELS OUT OF BOUNDS.

Sir PHILIP RICHARDSON: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that, by order of the Deputy Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster-General, London District headquarters, under date 17th March, 1924, one or more London hotels in the vicinity of Victoria station were placed out of bounds to all troops; and whether he will cause this and any other similar instructions to be so modified that Territorial soldiers proceeding to, or returning from, military exercises or shooting practices may obtain necessary and reasonable food and refreshment at hotels?

Mr. GREENE: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to a communication made to the winter general meeting of the National Rifle Association on Monday, 28th February, to the effect that on
a Sunday a party of Territorials belonging to a distinguished London unit, on returning hungry, thirsty, and tired from practising at Bisley, were refused refreshment at a hotel and a railway buffet on the ground that they were in uniform; and whether he proposes to take any action to prevent a recurrence of such incidents?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I will answer these questions together. Five hotels or public-houses in the vicinity of Victoria Station have been placed out of bounds for troops in uniform as undesirable, but I am unaware that any London railway station buffet has been so dealt with. I am satisfied that the military authorities were justified in placing the hotels or public-houses in question out of bounds. There is sufficient accommodation at Victoria Station and elsewhere in the neighbourhood for soldiers to obtain refreshment.

Mr. R. MORRISON: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether, when hotels are placed out of bounds by the military authorities, representations are also made to the police, on the ground that if a hotel is unsuitable for soldiers in uniform it is equally unsuitable for anybody else?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The same thought occurred to me when I was considering the question this morning, and I am going to sec what steps ought to be taken in the matter.

TRAVELLING WARRANTS (ARMY OF 0CCUPATION)

Mr. TAYLOR: 16.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the advisability of issuing a free travelling warrant to and from a British port to all British soldiers serving with the Army of Occupation in Germany when they become entitled to their annual leave?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The general Army rule is that free travelling on leave is not provided at the expense of Army funds, and I regret that I cannot agree to exceptional treatment in this respect for the troops on the Rhine. Arrangements are, however, in force under which these troops have the benefit of considerably reduces fares when travelling on leave to this country.

Mr. TAYLOR: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that it is a great hardship on the men in the non-commissioned ranks to have to pay their fares for annual leave?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: It is a hardship to any of us to have to pay anything, but for some of the things we pay we get some return.

Mr. TAYLOR: But in view of the low remuneration of the non-commissioned ranks, ought not these men to be placed on terms of equality with other units?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I am afraid if we were to go into questions of remuneration there would be a lot of other claims.

Sir A. HOLBROOK: Is it not a fact that officers do not get their fares paid when they go home?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA.

SHANGHAI DEFENCE FORCE (DEPENDANTS' ALLOWANCES).

Mr. HARRIS: 17.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether the soldiers now serving overseas in China have any special allowance for their dependants; and what provision will be made for them in case of death or accident due to service?

Captain KING: As regards the first part of the question, marriage allowance is issued, under the conditions laid down in the Regulations, in respect of wives and children of soldiers serving with the Shanghai Defence Force. In addition, families of soldiers on the married quarters roll have either been allowed to remain in public quarters or been granted lodging, fuel and light allowance in lieu. As regards the last part of the question, families and dependants will be eligible, under the usual conditions, for the benefits laid down in the Pay Warrant.

Mr. HARRIS: Are those conditions similar to the conditions during the Great War? Do they get the same pension rights, or equal pension rights?

Captain KING: These are not war conditions.

DISTURBANCE (HANKOW).

Mr. VIANT: 71.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the two Chinese wounded in the bayonet charge by British marines at Hankow on 3rd January subsequently died of the wounds inflicted upon them; and whether other Chinese were seriously wounded on that occasion?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Godfrey Locker-Lampson): My information is that only two Chinese were wounded at Hankow on 23rd January and that neither of them has died from his wounds. I would point out that there was no bayonet charge by the British naval detachments, who remained strictly on the defensive throughout the attack on the concession.

Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: May I ask whether the British marines are now well out of danger after the unprovoked assault upon them by the Chinese?

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I do not think they are in any danger at the present time.

SHANGHAI.

Captain GARRO-JONES: 75.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any negotiations have been commenced with the Cantonese authorities to meet the situation in the neighbourhood of Shanghai?

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: As was stated in the reply given on 21st February to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting and to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff East, declarations were made by Mr. Chen and Mr. O'Malley on 19th February regarding the policy of the Nationalist Government towards British and other concessions and international settlements in China. Apart from this there have been no negotiations with the Cantonese authorities regarding Shanghai.

Captain GARRO-JONES: Has the hon. Member given up the idea of attempting a settlement by negotiation, and can he say whether there is anyone on the spot who is empowered to treat with the Cantonese authorities?

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: We are always ready to negotiate, but I do not
think we can possibly shift the responsibility of protecting the lives of our own subjects upon the shoulders of anyone else. In regard to the last part of the Supplementary Question, I would say that our Consul-General in Shanghai will be on the spot to carry out any negotiations that may be necessary.

Captain GARRO-JONES: I did not suggest that the responsibility should be shifted. I want to ask whether the Consul-General or anyone else is expressly empowered to negotiate with the Cantonese authorities? Is he a plenipotentiary?

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Does the Minister regard it as the proper thing to negotiate with people in regard to a city when, they are not in possession of that city?

Captain GARRO-JONES: rose
—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member's questions are hypothetical.

Captain GARRO-JONES: With respect, I have not put hypothetical questions. I want to know whether there is anyone on the spot empowered to negotiate, and I have not had an answer.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I am ready to answer that question. Our Consul-General in Shanghai is empowered, if he thinks fit and it becomes necessary, to carry out negotiations with either of the contending parties.

TRANSPORT "MEGANTIC."

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 66.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will explain the terms agreed upon between the White Star Liner Company and his Department for the transport of troops to China on the ship "Megantic"?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I have been asked to reply. The ship was engaged as a transport under the Regulations for His Majesty's Transport Service, by which the ship is entirely at the disposal of the Government. The owner is responsible for the ship and its upkeep, deck and engine room stores, crew, victualling of crew and marine insurance. The Government provides fuel, pays dock and harbour dues, and accepts war risk. The owners victual the passengers at agreed rates per head.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

ERRIBOL ESTATE (SALE).

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: 20.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how much the Board of Agriculture paid for the furniture in the lodge of Erribol; how much has since been spent upon additional furniture for the lodge; and how much the arbiter has awarded the Board of Agriculture for the furniture?

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour): The Board paid £600 for furniture taken over from the former tenant at Whitsunday, 1921. The cost of additional furniture purchased by them was approximately £175. The amount awarded by the valuer for furniture taken over by the present owner at Martinmas, 1926, was £453 13s. 6d.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Then what has happened to the difference between the £775 obtained for this furniture and the £453 received for it?

Sir J. GILMOUR: That is a matter of opinion on which I could not venture to say anything.

Sir HARRY BRITTAIN: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether the furniture was new or secondhand?

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Would the right hon. Gentleman suggest to the Prime Minister that we ought to have a day for discussion of this subject?

Sir A. SINCLAIR: 51.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether the Treasury were consulted and approved the exposure of the estate of Erribol for sale by public auction subject to the valuation of the sheep-stock at Whitsunday; whether they were consulted before it was decided to sell by private treaty with a Martinmas valuation only a portion of the ordinary sheep-stock of the farm; whether they considered the terms of the bargain which were contained in the missives of sale to the present purchaser and in the terms of reference to the arbiter in the sheep-stock valuation; whether they appreciated the difference between the new terms and those on which the sale had been advertised by auction; and whether they approved the decision to sell on the news terms by private treaty without inviting competitive offers?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I have been asked to reply. The Treasury were consulted on the financial aspect of the various proposals for the sale of this property and gave such approval as was required to authorise the steps taken.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Did the Treasury know at the time this negotiation was going on for eventual purchase that there were other people inquiring about the farm and making offers to buy it?

Sir J. GILM0UR: No, obviously as no one had direct information no definite offer was made.

Mr. STEPHEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman allay the widespread discontent in connection with the matter and arrange for a Select Committee of the House to inquire into it?

Sir J. GILMOUR: No, Sir.

Lieut.-Commander BURNEY: Will the hon. Member buy it himself to save further trouble?

CHURCHES AND MANSES.

Sir ALEXANDER SPROT: 22.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether any churches and manses have been handed over to the trustees of the Church of Scotland; and, if so, how many?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The churches and manses of three parishes have been transferred from the heritors to the Church of Scotland General Trustees. I regret that more rapid progress has not been made, as it is obviously in the interests of both parties that as many cases as possible should be settled by agreement before 28th May, 1928, so as to avoid the necessity for contested proceedings before the Sheriff under Section 28 of the Church of Scotland Act, 1925, which would require to be initiated before that date.

GLASGOW (MARLOW STREET DISASTER).

Mr. T. HENDERSON: 23.
asked the Lord Advocate whether his attention has been called to the reports made by and issued to the Glasgow Town Council, by a committee appointed by the council, regarding the condition of certain tenement property situated in Marlow Street, Tradeston, Glasgow, where a disaster occurred involving the death of several persons; whether the procurator-fiscal of
the city of Glasgow was aware of the reports of the above-mentioned committee; and, if not, will he order the procurator-fiscal to reconsider his decision not to take proceedings at law against the municipal authority or the owners of the property in question?

The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. William Watson): No reports regarding the property referred to by the hon. Member were made by or issued to the Glasgow Town Council by any committee appointed by the council. In August, 1922, an unofficial committee consisting of certain members of the Building Trades Federation, the Glasgow Trades Council, and Housing Association, made a report recommending that a chimney stack at 26, Marlow Street, should be rebuilt, which was afterwards done. That was not the chimney stack which caused the disaster referred to by the hon. Member, and no report regarding the latter was made by the body in question. In these circumstances, I see no reason to reconsider the decision arrived at by Crown Counsel, on a report by the procurator-fiscal, that no proceedings should be taken.

Mr. HENDERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the report concerning the property referred to in the question was sent to the town clerk, Sir John Lindsay, and was well known to the town council and to the owners of the property, and in the circumstances is he not prepared to have an inquiry into the whole question of this disaster in Marlow Street?

The LORD ADVOCATE: If the hon. Member had paid closer attention to nay answer he would have appreciated that the only report made was the one referred to relating to the chimney stack at 26, Marlow Street, and that particular chimney stack has been repaired and it is not the one that caused the disaster.

Mr. HENDERSON: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply I beg to give notice that I shall raise this question on the Motion for the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

ILLEGAL TRAWLING.

Mr. MACKENZIE LIVINGTON: 21.
(forSir R. HAMILTON) asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of convictions for illegal trawling in Scottish
waters during 1926, showing the number of previous convictions in each instance?

Sir J. GILMOUR: There were eleven convictions in 1926 for illegal trawling and seine net fishing in Scottish waters; of these seven were for first, offences, two for second offences and two for third offences.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL MINING INDUSTRY.

ULTRA-VIOLET RAYS.

Sir GEORGE BERRY: 24.
asked the Secretary for Mines if, in view of the health advantages claimed for even a short exposure to ultra-violet rays and, further, in view of the work of miners, necessarily at times debarring them from enjoying daylight and sunlight, the natural source of such rays, he will consider the desirability of establishing experimentally installations for the production of ultra-violet rays in one or more of the baths provided for miners?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I understand that the Miners' Welfare Committee have this matter under consideration in connection with the provision of pithead baths under the Mining Industry Act, 1926, but that the proposal is not free from difficulty.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that it is absolutely necessary to have expert

NUMBER OF PERSONS Killed and Seriously Injured* at Mines under the Coal and Metalliferous Mines Regulation Acts.





Number of Persons killed.
Number of Persons seriously injured.*


Month.
Below ground.
Above ground.
Total.
Below ground.
Above ground.
Total.


December, 1925
…
…
105
11
116
332
59
391


January, 1926
…
…
75
12
87
353
49
402


February, 1926
…
…
101
12
113
363
44
407


December, 1926
…
…
90
8
98
348
42
390


January, 1927
…
…
70
6
76
371
45
416


February, 1927
…
…
86
8
94
356
43
399


* These particulars refer to accidents which, because of their nature, are required to be reported to the Inspectors of Mines at the time of their occurrence. They include (a) accidents causing fracture of head or limb, or dislocation of limb, or any other serious personal injury, (b) accidents caused by explosion of gas or dust, or any other explosive or by electricity or by overwinding, and causing any personal injury, whatever. The number of persons less seriously injured is considerably greater, bat particulars of such accidents are not available for these periods.

supervision of this treatment because it is very dangerous to carry out, and must be in charge of a properly qualified official?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The extent to which that is true—and within limits it is true—is one of the many difficulties which attend the adoption of what on the face of it is an attractive proposition.

Mr. PALING: Is the Miners' Welfare Committee going to discuss the possibility of putting these installations down the pit so as to avoid the necessity of the men coming to the surface at all?

Mr. HARDIE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that no amount of artificial rays, ultra-violet or otherwise, can make up for the absence of natural sunlight caused by the extended hours under the Miners' Eight Hours Act?

ACCIDENTS.

Mr. LUNN: 25.
asked the Secretary for Mines what was the total of fatal and non-fatal accidents in mines reported in December, 1925, and January and February, 1926, respectively, and the number reported for December, 1926, and January and February, 1927?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I will circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The figures are as follow:

CUTTING AND CONVEYING MACHINES.

Mr. HARDIE: 26.
asked the Secretary for Mines the total number of coal-cutting and conveying machines in British coal mines; and what number are of foreign production?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: In 1925, the latest year for which information is available, 6,650 coal-cutting machines and 1,513 conveyors were in use in British coal mines. I do not know how many of them were of foreign production.

WHEELLESS TUBS (HAULAGE).

Mr. HARDIE: 27.
asked the Secretary for Mines if he can give the number of mines in England and Wales still using the guss for coal-haulage of wheelless tubs; and the number of persons so engaged?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The number of mines is 17, and the number of persons approximately 800.

Mr. HARDIE: On the basis of the Coal Measures Reconstruction Act that we heard so much about, has any part of that Measure been applied to cases like this, of men working underground and drawing tubs without wheels?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I do not follow the connection between the two questions.

Mr. HARDIE: I want to know if any part of the Measure passed in this House during the six months of the stoppage for the reorganisation of the mining industry has been applied to places where there are no wheels on the tubs?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better give notice of that question.

Mr. HARDIE: It is on the Paper. The reference here is to existing conditions, and I am asking if that Act has been applied?

Mr. SPEAKER: Any question as to the application of the Act should be put on the Paper.

Mr. BATEY: Has the Mines Department ever asked the inspectors of mines to interview owners to try to put a stop to this bad practice?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The hon. Member will probably recollect that in 1914 there was an Inquiry into all this, and the result of the evidence then
obtained was that there had never been any known case of anyone suffering in his health.

METALLURGICAL COKE.

Mr. HARDIE: 28.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether the production of metallurgical coke in this country is equal to the country's needs; whether there is a surplus; and, if so, is it exported?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: Yes, Sir, in normal times. But production has not yet recovered from the effect of last year's stoppage, and exports at present are very small.

Mr. HARDIE: Is it not a fact that, apart altogether from the stoppage, there was an abnormal number of coke-ovens shut down which have not opened up yet; and is it not a fact that that is causing great difficulty in getting through pig-iron orders for this country owing to the shortage of coke?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: After a long stoppage it is a difficult matter to re-start every coke-oven rapidly and I have no reason to suppose that that is not progressing as quickly as possible.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: Does the right hon. Gentleman know that there are several coke-producing collieries already closed down in Durham and coke-ovens as well?

Mr. HARDIE: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House any idea of how long it takes to bring a coke-oven into active working order after it has been closed down for even a month or two?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: It would be very dangerous to give a general answer which, as the hon. Member knows from his technical knowledge on this subject, varies in different circumstances.

PRICES.

Sir WALTER de FRECE: 30.
asked the Secretary for Mines if he will state the reduction in pit-head prices of coal which have taken place during the last month; and whether these have been passed on in all cases to the consumer?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given yesterday to the hon. Member for Plaistow by the Parliamentary Secretary, a copy of which I am sending him.

BOY LABOUR.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 31.
asked the Secretary for Mines if he will ascertain the times of the commencing and ending of the various shifts worked by boys of from 14 to 18 years of age in the mines of the county of Durham and the country?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I would refer the hon. Member to the answers given to him on the same subject on 9th December and 14th December.

Mr. RICHARDSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the reply to which he refers gives the information asked for in this question?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I have read with great care the hon. Member's question and my right hon. Friend's answer, and both of them convey a very definite impression and a considerable amount of information.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Has the Secretary for Mines or any other member of his Department approached at any time a colliery company with a view to getting more humane hours more suitable for the needs of the people?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I really think it would be impossible to deal with the whole problem of how a settlement of the hours of work should be arranged in the coal industry by means of Supplementary Questions.

EXPORTS.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 32.
asked the Secretary for Mines what were the total exports of coal from Great Britain during last month, and the corresponding figure for February, 1926?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: 4,172,856 tons of coal were exported during last month, and 4,340,006 tons during February, 1926.

RAILWAY WAGONS.

Mr. CLARRY: 36 and 37.
asked the Minister of Transport (1), if he is aware of the continuous delays, congestion and inadequate railway service now obtaining in the Eastern Counties served by the Great Eastern section of the London and North-Eastern Railway Company; that, in consequence, many gas undertakings are unable to get regular and adequate supplies of coal, thereby jeopardising the
local gas supply; and what steps he proposes to take to assist these public utility undertakings;

(2), if he is aware that several large collieries which supply coal to the Eastern Counties are only working part time owing to the continuous delays in the London and North Eastern Railway Company's handling of their traffic; and whether he is prepared to institute a public Inquiry into the matter?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): I am aware of the difficulties that have arisen in connection with the conveyance of coal on the Great Eastern section of the London and North Eastern Railway, and I am in communication with the railway company on the subject. So, far as the difficulties in connection with the supply to gas undertakings are concerned, I am informed by the company that these have now been practically surmounted.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Is it not the case that the right hon. Gentleman has been receiving representations on this matter for at least six weeks, and some of us are still waiting for any satisfactory reply?

Colonel ASHLEY: I think that that is not quite a fair way of putting it. Conditions are still unsatisfactory, I admit, but they are improving.

Mr. ALEXANDER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we have had notification of hundreds of wagons being sent away from the collieries five and six weeks ago, which have not yet been delivered, so that we are being asked to pay for coal which we have never seen?

Colonel ASHLEY: The fact is, that a certain number of wagons got at the bottom of the siding, and wagons which were despatched long after these are being delivered before them. It is not until the trouble of the importation of foreign coal has been finally surmounted that we shall get things right.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Has not the experience of the last six weeks confirmed the right hon. Gentleman in the conviction that the only solution of this problem is the pooling of coal wagons?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is rather argumentative.

Oral Answers to Questions — MOTOR TRAFFIC.

TAXI-CABS.

Captain CROOKSHANK: 33.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he has yet received from the London Traffic Advisory Committee a Report on crawling taximeter cabs; what is its nature; and whether he intends to publish it?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): I have not yet received the Committee's Report on this subject. I have, therefore, nothing to add to the answer which I gave to a similar question addressed to me by my hon. and gallant Friend on the 15th February last. Until I have received and considered the Report I cannot arrive at any decision with regard to its publication.

ANTI-DAZZLE LIGHTS.

Brigadier-General CHARTERIS: 40.
asked the Minister of Transport whether legislation restricting the use of dazzling lights on motor cars in public highways is operative in France and/or other European countries; whether his Department has knowledge of any anti-dazzle lighting system fulfilling the requirements laid down by the Committee which reported on this subject to his predecessor; and whether he will consider the introduction of legislation governing the use of lights on motor cars?

Colonel ASHLEY: Regulations restricting the use of dazzling lights on motor ears are operative in France and certain other European countries. As regards the second part of the question, I am not aware of any headlight which provides an adequate driving light without some degree of dazzle. As regards the last part, I am considering the question of seeking additional powers to deal with the lighting of road vehicles in the Bill which I hope to introduce when Parliamentary time is available.

Brigadier-General CHARTERIS: Will my right hon. Friend consider the reassembling of the Committee which investigated this matter, to look into any new improvements in anti-dazzle lights that may have been brought to notice since?

Colonel ASHLEY: I do not think that that is necessary. We went very carefully into it at the time, and my
Department are in close touch with the question. Any satisfactory devices that may appear on the market we shall at once look into.

Mr. STEPHEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether this Measure will be introduced before Easter?

Colonel ASHLEY: No, I could not say that; it depends on circumstances.

DRIVING LICENCES.

Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: 41.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he could arrange for driving licences to be taken out on 1st January every year?

Colonel ASHLEY: I cannot see my way to introduce legislation to put this suggestion into effect. The existing system has the advantage of spreading the work of issue over the whole year.

Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that even Members of this House sometimes happen to forget the date at which they should take out their licences?

Mr. MARCH: They have to pay for forgetting.

Mr. W. THORNE: They forget their promises as well!

ROAD VEHICLES BILL.

Sir W. de FRECE: 44.
asked the Minister of Transport if he intends to circulate the proposed Bill affecting the motor industry before its introduction in the House; if so, when he anticipates he will be able to do this; and whether it is intended that the Measure should be passed this year?

Colonel ASHLEY: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer, of which I am sending him a copy, which I gave on the 24th February to my hon. and gallant friends the Members for Faversham (Sir G. Wheler) and Clitheroe (Captain Brass).

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

OVERCROWDED TRAINS, SOUTH-EAST LONDON.

Colonel DAY: 34.
asked the Minister of Transport if his attention has been drawn to the overcrowding, with the resulting danger to the public, that takes
place during the peak hours on trains leaving Charing Cross and London Bridge stations; and will he take steps with a view to the augmentation of such services in the South-East London area?

Colonel ASHLEY: My attention has not been drawn recently to this matter, but I have communicated with the railway company, who inform me that, in spite of recent improvements in the services, certain trains are still somewhat overcrowded, and that they hope to introduce some further improvements when the time-table is next revised.

Colonel DAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider making representations to the railway company that the trains which leave Charing Cross should not stop at London Bridge, because that is where the greater part of the overcrowding takes place, after the trains are full?

Colonel ASHLEY: I will make inquiries.

ROAD FUND (SURPLUS).

Mr. FENBY: 38.
asked the Minister of Transport what is the approximate surplus in the Road Fund, and how much of the surplus of £19,000,000 existing on 31st March, 1926, will have been expended in the current year?

Colonel ASHLEY: It is estimated that the cash balances and investments of the Road Fund will amount to about £12,000,000 at the 31st March, 1927, but liabilities will be outstanding to a considerably greater amount.

CANALS.

Mr. BRIANT: 39.
asked the Minister of Transport the total mileage of canals in England and the number of miles actually open to traffic?

Colonel ASHLEY: The total length of canal and inland waterways in England and Wales, as shown in the Report of the Royal Commission of 1906, is 4,080 miles, of which 19 miles were closed at that date. Recent figures of the total mileage of canals in England and the number of miles actually open for traffic are not available, but the abandonment of 50 miles has been authorised since my Department was formed in 1919.

ARTERIAL ROADS (CURB-STONES).

Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: 42.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware of the danger of the new upright curb-stones along the sides of the new arterial and main roads; and whether he will consider whether it would be more advantageous and less dangerous if the edges were rounded off and sloped down to the road at a more gentle angle?

Colonel ASHLEY: I do not consider that vertical curbs are dangerous, but in certain circumstances splayed or rounded edges, as used in many districts, are preferable, and I gave instructions some time ago to the engineering staff of my Department that local authorities should be encouraged to extend the practice where suitable.

Sir JOSEPH NALL: Does not this practice add to the cost, as well as to the obstruction?

Colonel ASHLEY: I do not think that that is so. It would be more expensive to have a curved than an upright curb.

Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is it not much safer?

Mr. RADFORD: Is it not the case that upright curbs are more likely to afford protection to pedestrians on the footpath?

Colonel ASHLEY: That is exactly the point. In urban areas, where pedestrians are in evidence, the upright curbs are preferable, but in the country, where there are none, I think the curved ones are preferable.

OMNIBUSES, LONDON,

Mr. HARRIS: 43.
asked the Minister of Transport how many separate companies and undertakings have been absorbed by the London General Omnibus Company, or a controlling interest obtained in their shares, since the passing of the London Traffic Act; and whether any difference has been made in the allocation of routes or in the disposal of licences since the companies, now controlled by the London General Omnibus Company, have lost their independence?

Colonel ASHLEY: According to the returns furnished to me under Section 14 of the London Traffic Act, the number of
omnibus undertakings of which the London General Omnibus Company has acquired control since the passing of the Act is 48. Some of the omnibuses owned by these undertakings have been withdrawn from service. There has been no alteration, however, in the operation of the remaining omnibuses so far as concerns routes through streets, or parts of streets, which have been declared to be "restricted" under Section 7 of the London Traffic Act. Other routes are not subject to restrictions.

Mr. HARRIS: Does not this justify the allegation that I made, that the result of the London Traffic Act would be that there would be practically one big combine of all the omnibuses under the London General Omnibus Company?

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think that this is the time for justification.

ROAD SCHEMES (EMPLOYMENT).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 52.
asked the Minister of Transport how many men are employed on road schemes financed out of the Road Fund; and whether he anticipates an increase in the number of men so employed during the present year?

Colonel ASHLEY: Assistance from the Road Fund is given to nearly all the 2,000 local authorities of the country, but as their roadmen are engaged partly on grant-earning and partly on non-grant-earning works, it is not possible to give the particulars for which the hon. and gallant Member asks; nor is it possible for me to predict whether the local authorities will increase or decrease their staffs during the present year.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to increase the assistance to local authorities this year?

Colonel ASHLEY: I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman had better wait and see.

Major CRAWFURD: Has the right hon. Gentleman given any further consideration to the suggestion made by one of his colleagues that he should raise a loan on the security of the Road Fund in order to provide more employment?

Colonel ASHLEY: I do not think that arises out of the question.

EXPLOSION, BEACONSFIELD ROAD, W. 4.

Colonel DAY: 35.
asked the Minister of Transport whether his attention has been drawn to the evidence given at the coroner's inquest on Mrs. Elizabeth Waterworth, of 1, Beaconsfield Road, W. 4, who received injuries, which resulted fatally, in an explosion at her home, to the fact that the electric feeder laid down along the road by the district council was over 25 years old and encased in bitumen, and that the feeder was burnt away for about 18 inches; and if he can state whether a periodical system of overhauling was carried out,, in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry?

Colonel ASHLEY: I understand from the Electricity Commissioners that they have been informed by the Electricity Supply Company concerned that a gas explosion was the cause of the damage to their cables, and that the damaged cable where the accident took place was in no way connected to the adjacent mains encased in bitumen, which are situated on the opposite side of the street at a distance of 30 feet from the premises in which the explosion took place.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: As the road in question is in my constituency, may I ask when I may receive the report on this subject, which was promised to me some days ago, from my right hon. Friend's Department?

Colonel ASHLEY: I will try to let my hon. Friend have it as soon as I can.

TRADE UNIONS (POLITICAL LEVY).

Mr. WADDINGTON: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether, as only 683,272 members out of a total of 3,003,373 members of registered trade unions voted in favour of a political levy, he will consider making provision in the proposed Trade Union Amendment Bill for another ballot to be taken of the members of all registered and unregistered trade unions?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I must ask my hon. Friend to await the introduction of the Bill.

Mr. BECKETT: In view of the fact that only 36 per cent. of the electorate voted in the last election, will the right hon. Gentleman consider having a fresh election?

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Bills likely to be introduced?

Mr. SPEAKER: There is another question about that.

HOUSE OF LORDS.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 46.
asked the Prime Minister when it is proposed to introduce legislation for the reform of the House of Lords?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am not yet in a position to make any statement.

BEER DUTIES.

Sir A. HOLBROOK: 47.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total amount of the duties levied on beer in this country in the years 1924, 1925, and 1926?

Mr. R. McNEILL: As the answer is in tabular form, I will with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The net amount of revenue from the duty on beer collected in each of the years 1924, 1925 and 1926, was as follows:


Year ended 31st December.
Customs (Imported).
Excise (Homemade).
Total.



£
£
£


1924
5,924,422
74,370,236
80,294,658


1925
6,178,959
76,873,301
83,052,260


1926*
5,609,119
78,844,125
84,453,244


* Provisional figures.

Owing to the reduction in the period of credit allowed to brewers, under the Finance Act, 1926, the receipts shown above for 1926 cover almost 13 months' beer duty.

STATIONERY OFFICE PUBLICATIONS.

Mr. W. BAKER: 49.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether arrangements can be made for the daily list of non-Parliamentary publications, which is issued by the Stationery Office, to be exhibited in the Library, or in some other prominent position, so that Members may be aware of the Papers which are available?

Mr. McNEILL: Arrangements have been made to exhibit a copy of the list in the Library and in the Vote Office.

Mr. BAKER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how soon the list will be ready?

Mr. McNEILL: I cannot say at this moment, but I will investigate the matter personally in the course of the afternoon.

Mr. STEPHEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us when the form will be available in the Vote Office for getting these Stationery Office publications?

Mr. McNEILL: I cannot say, but I think it will be in a clay or two, certainly.

MUNICIPAL SAVINGS BANKS.

Mr. GILLETT: 50.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many meetings have been held by the Committee which is inquiring into the question of municipal banking; whether evidence is being taken from parties interested; and when it is anticipated that the Committee will present its Report?

Mr. McNEILL: The Municipal Savings Banks Committee has held 12 meetings. It has taken and is taking evidence from parties interested. The Committee hope to present a Report not later than June.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA.

NATIVE LANDS TRUST.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 64.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the anxiety and dissatisfaction created amongst the Kikuyu, owing to the recent decision of the Supreme Court that natives are tenants at will of the
Crown, has been brought to his notice; and what steps it is proposed to take to reassure the Kikuyu upon the matter?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Amery): I am aware that anxiety has been expressed, but I have little doubt that when the nature of the Trust which it is proposed to set up in connection with native lands in Kenya has been determined and defined, any feeling of uncertainty will be removed.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that no anxiety or dissatisfaction seems to have been expressed by those who employ them?

Mr. AMERY: No, I am not aware of any disaffection, only of a certain anxiety as to the future of their lands which will no doubt be dispelled when the terms of the Trust are published.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can we be sure that this new Trust will be set up this year and will be one of the first subjects to be discussed with the Governor?

Mr. AMERY: It will certainly be one of the first subjects to be discussed with the Governor.

MOMBASA (RATING OF SITE VALUES).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 65.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the system of rating on the basis of unimproved site value for Mombasa as in Nairobi was agreed to by the Secretary of State in 1922 on the recommendations of the local authorities at Mombasa; and whether, seeing that the Secretary of State subsequently changed the basis to annual value, so that unbuilt-on suburban land escaped rating, he will say at what date was this reversal of policy made and at whose instance?

Mr. AMERY: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The later decision to effect assessment temporarily on the basis of annual value was taken on the advice of the District Committee, and provision was made accordingly in Township Rules dated 17th September, 1923. No change has been made since this date. This arrangement was originally intended as a temporary measure until the Town Planning Scheme had advanced sufficiently to enable the
assessment on site values to be carried out satisfactorily. That scheme was approved some months ago, but it is understood that further consideration of the question of the basis of municipal taxation in Mombasa was postponed pending the Report of the Local Government Commission, whose inquiry covers this subject.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Are we to understand that the change from land value to annual value was proposed out there and not at the Colonial Office here?

Mr. AMERY: Yes, I think it was at the desire of the Indian residents in Mombasa that the change was made. The question, of course, will come up in the Report of the Local Government Commission.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

CONTRACTS.

Mr. GILLETT: 67.
asked the Secretary of State for Air how many contracts of £50,000 or over for the purchase of goods have been placed with contractors, without competitive tenders for such being first received, during the present financial year?

Captain Viscount CURZON (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. Twenty-one such contracts have been placed, the requirement in each case being for articles which only one particular firm was in a position to supply.

REFUELLING EXPERIMENTS.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 68.
asked the Secretary of State for Air how far refuelling experiments when flying have been successful; where they have been carried out; and if it is intended to build a series of planes equipped with spare tanks for that purpose?

Viscount CURZON: I have been asked to reply. As regards the first two parts of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. and gallant Member for Southwark, Central, on 16th February. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Is there any intention to develop this method in regard to long-distance flights, or to make experiments?

Viscount CURZON: I must ask for notice of that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — BROADCASTING.

PHOTO-TELEGRAPHY.

Colonel DAY: 53.
asked the Postmaster General whether he has received any requests asking for permission to broadcast pictures by the means of photo-telegraphy; if any experimental tests or demonstrations have been carried out; and, if so, with what result?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir William Mitchell-Thomson): Experimental wireless licences have been issued to several persons to enable them to undertake experimental work in the direction of the broadcasting of both still and moving pictures. Several systems have been suggested, but the matter is not yet out of the experimental stage.

Colonel DAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Vienna, they are sending out three pictures every evening by photo-telegraphy?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I was not speaking of experiments between different stations of commercial wireless companies but of broadcasting for reception by private individuals. I am aware of the experiment that is being made on the Continent.

Colonel DAY: Has the hon. Gentleman received any request from Mr. Thorne-Baker to carry out experiments with photo-telegraphy on the same system in this country?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The Thorne-Baker process is one of the processes which are working experimentally at present.

Colonel DAY: Are they not successful?

WIRELESS LICENCES.

Mr. SHORT: 56.
asked the Postmaster-General if he will state the number of wireless licences issued, and the amount derived therefrom, during 1926, as compared with 1925?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The number of licences issued during the year 1926 was 2,178,000, compared with 1,642,000 in 1925. A fee of 10s. per licence
was charged, the total receipts amounting to £1,089,000 in 1926, compared with £821,000 in 1925.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

UNITED STATES (TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION).

Captain CROOKSHANK: 54.
asked the Postmaster-General what is the cost of having opened up telephonic communication with the United States; and whether it is expected that the service will be self-supporting?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: For the period 7th-31st of January the running costs of the British end of the trans-Atlantic telephone service, including sundry expenses incidental to the initiation of the service, amounted to approximately £2,000, and plant charges—depreciation and interest—to a further £1,900. The answer to the second part of the question is in the affirmative.

TELEPHONE SERVICE.

Captain CROOKSHANK: 55.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he can form any estimate of what would be the cost of installing a public telephone call box in every post office in this country?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: No reliable figure can be given without compiling an estimate Air each individual office, but the total would probably be not less than £2,000,000.

Mr. RILEY: 59 and 61.
asked the Postmaster-General (1) the terms for installation, annual rental, and call charges for telephones in rural and urban areas, respectively; and what are the conditions upon which telephones are installed in both cases;

(2) the charges for rural telephones in Great Britain?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The terms upon which telephone service is provided vary somewhat for London, certain large provincial towns and other parts of the country, and according to whether exclusive or party line circuits are provided. Detailed information on the subject does not lend itself readily to an oral reply, and I would therefore refer the hon. Member to pages 109–112 of the Post Office Guide, where he will find all relevant information fully set out.

Mr. RILEY: 60.
asked the Postmaster-General the number of telephones per 1,000 of the inhabitants in Great Britain?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The number of telephones per 1,000 of the inhabitants in Great Britain and Northern Ireland is now 33.

Mr. RILEY: How do those figures compare with Dominion countries like Canada and Australia?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The last date for which I have figures is, I think, 31st December, 1925. Then we came about tenth on the list of telephone-using countries.

Sir J. NALL: Does that indicate the slow development of the telephone under Government control?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The relative position is distinctly improving.

Mr. LOOKER: 57.
(forMr. RHYS) asked the Postmaster-General the number of applications for rural telephone exchanges during the last three years, respectively, for which figures are available, and the number authorised?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The number of new rural exchanges authorised during the years 1924, 1925 and 1926 was 211, 191 and 141 respectively. The total number of applications is not available without considerable labour and expense.

Mr. LOOKER: 58.
(forMr. RHYS) asked the Postmaster-General the number of rural telephone exchanges in operation in the years 1911, 1912 and 1913; and the number in operation in the years 1924, 1925 and 1926?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The number of telephone exchanges serving rural areas in Great Britain and Northern Ireland working at the end of 1911, 1913, 1924, 1925 and 1926 was as follows:


1911
1047


1913
1254


1924
2307


1925
2522


1926
2684

Figures are not available for 1912.

CASH-ON-DELIVERY SERVICE.

Sir W. de FRECE: 62.
asked the Postmaster-General the number of parcels
sent under the cash-on-delivery system which have been declined by the addressees; what is the cost of handling such return parcels; and what percentage of the whole number of parcels such refusals represent?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: About 20,000 cash-on-delivery parcels proved undeliverable during the period of 10 months ended 29th January, 1927. This figure includes parcels undeliverable for all reasons, and it is not possible to say how many were declined by the addressees. No accurate figure can be given of the cost of returning such parcels. The undeliverable parcels represent 2¼ per cent. of the total number of cash-on-delivery parcels posted during the period.

Colonel DAY: Is any charge made for the parcels that are returned?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: No. The Post Office retain the postage fee and the cash-on-delivery fee.

PATRINGTON SETTLEMENT (COMPENSATION FOR IMPROVEMENTS).

Mr. FENBY: 63.
asked the Minister of Agriculture what steps, if any, have been taken to implement the pledge given by him to the deputation from the colonists at Patrington to the effect that the granting of compensation for improvements carried out by the settlers in their gardens would be carefully considered?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Guinness): Claims for compensation in respect of improvements to gardens, etc., have so far been received from only four men, all of whom have already left the settlement. In one of these cases the Treasury have been asked to sanction payment, the amount of which has been agreed between the settler and my Department. In the second case, the settler has been asked to supply certain further particulars and vouchers, which have not yet been received. The remaining two claims have only been received very recently and are now being considered.

VIVISECTION.

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: 70.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received from
his inspectors, under the Cruelty to Animals Acts, any reports during the last five years indicating either demonstrations before classes of students or painful experiments of a prolonged and agonising nature on dogs or other animals; and, if so, what action has been taken, and with what result?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Captain Hacking): No, Sir. No such experiments would be permitted and there is no evidence whatever that any have taken place. In the case of experiments before students, they are all required to be performed under anæsthetics and the animal must be killed before it recovers consciousness. As regards other experiments, all holders of licences who have certificates either dispensing with the requirement to use anæsthetics or permitting the animals to recover from the preliminary operation under anæsthetics are subject in respect of every such experiment to a special condition known as the pain condition. The terms of this condition are printed in the Report which is laid by my right hon. Friend each year before the House and are such as to render "experiments of a prolonged and agonising nature" impossible. For many years past the inspectors under the Act have not found any instance of an infringement of this condition; if an inspector did observe any animal to he suffering considerable pain he would at once order it to he killed.

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Is the hon. and gallant Member aware that the specific statements which he declares in be untrue are being publicly circulated by the National Canine Defence League and are said to have resulted in a very large number of subscriptions? Can Le do anything to prevent such misleading statements?

Captain HACKING: I know that many things are said by many organisations which are not true, and I hope that my answer will get as wide a circulation.

Mr. BROMLEY: Can the hon. and gallant Member say that some of the inspectors who are put to watch these proceedings have not themselves been vivisectors and, therefore, in sympathy with them?

Captain HACKING: No, Sir. That is a very unfair thing to say. The inspectors carry out their duties very creditably to themselves and to this House and to all concerned.

Mr. BROMLEY: Have there not been such inspectors?

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think the hon. Member ought to make such suggestions in a supplementary question.

ARGENTINA (BRITISH REPRESENTATIVE).

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: 72.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is prepared to consider favourably the creation of a British Embassy in Argentina?

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: The question of the status of the British representative at Buenos Aires is one which has long received and continues to receive the most careful consideration by His Majesty's Government. The weighty arguments in favour of the creation of 3.n Embassy have not been overlooked.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Would a change mean any addition to the cost to this country?

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I did not say that there was going to be a change.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: But would a change be any addition to the cost to this country?

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I would like notice of that question.

NICARAGUA (BRITISH INVESTMENTS AND PROPERTY).

Mr. GILLETT: 73.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what is the estimated value of British investments and property in Nicaragua; and whether he has evidence of danger to such property?

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires estimated at half a million pounds the value of British property in the three towns which he reported as particularly menaced. With regard to the second part of the question,
I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley on 2nd March.

FRANCE (BRITISH PASSPORTS).

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 74.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has had any communication with regard to the proposed stamping of the passports of British nationals by the French Government; and whether this stamp will affect those who hold or have held positions of employment in France?

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Two notes have been received from the French Government in regard to the admission of foreigners desirous of employment in France. The Regulations are briefly as follow:
Any foreigner desirous of entering France with a view to employment in that country must be in possession of a contract of employment endorsed by the competent department of the French Ministry of Labour or Ministry of Agriculture. A medical certificate of fitness issued by a medical officer approved by a French Consulate must accompany the contract.
Persons who are already in employment in France and who have been on a visit to their own country need not, on their return to France to the same employment, produce a new contract of employment. They must, however, produce evidence that they have been granted leave and also a letter of recall from their employer endorsed by one of the above-mentioned French departments.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (BENEFIT PAYMENTS).

Mr. SHORT: 76.
asked the Minister of Labour the amount of benefit paid under the Unemployment Insurance Acts during 1926?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton): The total amount of Unemployment Benefit paid during the year ended 31st December, 1920, was approximately £50,200,000.

Oral Answers to Questions — BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTION.

GROWTH OF TRUSTS.

Mr. T. HENDERSON: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I will call attention to the Growth of Trusts, and move a Resolution.

ELECTORAL REFORM.

Mr. MACKENZIE LIVINGSTONE: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I will call attention to Electoral Reform, and move a Resolution.

FREEDOM OF ACTION (INTERFERENCE).

Colonel Sir ARTHUR HOLBROOK: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I will call attention to the interference with freedom of action in this country, and move a Resolution.

SOCIALIST PARTY AND COMMUNISM.

Sir SAMUEL CHAPMAN: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I will call attention to the failure of the Socialist party to exclude Communism from their party organisation, and move a Resolution.

SALE OF HONOURS (PROHIBITION).

Mr. THURTLE: I beg to move:
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make illegal any arrangement or agreement concluded with the object of recommending the conferring of any title or honour upon any person in return for a donation to a political party fund.
This Bill is not intended to interfere with the award of honours and distinctions for literature or any field of activity; it only seeks to prevent a party filling its coffers from the sale of honours. It is fitting and proper that a Labour Member should introduce this particular Measure. Our party, so far, has clean hands, while the other two parties are certainly deeply implicated in this very despicable traffic. The Labour party has not started the practice, it does not wish to start it, therefore, it is free to suggest to the other parties, which may have a somewhat disreputable past, that the practice should come to an end. Recent events have drawn attention to this particular practice. There has been prolonged dissention about a fund which is called the Lloyd George Fund. I think it is quite clear that the origin of that
fund is very largely the sale of honours during the period of the Coalition Government. The practice was in existence before, but then it was a retail business. When the Coalition took over they made it a wholesale business. The facts were notorious at the time, and it became a public jest that, when a new title was conferred on a person, that he had acquired the Coalition guinea stamp. I would not pursue that subject if there were any sign of repentance, but there was a definite statement in a Liberal paper two or three weeks ago by a Liberal to the effect that it was a proper and legitimate method of raising party funds, which had the sanction behind it of long usage. In these circumstances I am entitled to refer to that. This practice has unfortunate consequences for parties and individuals. The unclean gold, if I may so describe it, which has come to the Lloyd George Fund as a result of the share of the money derived from the sale of honours during the period of the Coalition, has already caused deep convulsions in the Liberal party itself, and according to people like Viscount Grey and Lord Oxford and Asquith, the potentialities for mischief of that fund in the hands of a single individual are not by any means exhausted yet. Lord Rosebery has been asking questions about it. He asks:
What is it? It surely cannot be the sale of the Royal Honours? If that was so, there would be nothing in the worst times of Charles II or Sir Robert Walpole to equal it.
The only reply to that is a very eloquent and expressive silence. The Lloyd George Coalition had nothing to learn from Walpole in that respect. It is said that, as a result of the Royal Commission, which reported in 1923, the evil has been much diminished. That Commission made certain suggestions in regard to a Committee of three which is to consider any list of honours to be submitted to His Majesty, and it is true to say that, as a result, the evil is much less than it was. But it undoubtedly still exists. The Commission made a further recommendation which has never been carried into effect. It recommended that a short Act should be passed imposing penalties on people who engage in the traffic of selling honours. That has not been
passed, and I suggest it is time that the House took further steps to prevent the sale and the consequent degradation of honours. There is a Clause in the Bill which I am presenting this afternoon which requires political parties to publish periodical statements of their subscriptions. I am sure there will be no objection to that. There is nothing immoral or wrong in donating a sum of money to a political party, and it is in the best interests of political parties and public purity that there should be a public record of all these contributions. There are existing laws against corruption in politics, but this selling of honours is corruption on a grand scale, and, as we have realised, it is on such a scale that it is possible for a single individual to hold a whole party to ransom. As the law stands at present it is an offence for a political party to buy a vote for half-a-crown, but the law, as it stands, permits the same political party to sell a Peerage for £40,000. That is an anomaly which the House should bring to and end. In introducing this Measure I do not wish to enter into the question whether honours are good or had. I have my own views on that. It may be that an honour which is conferred on an individual for some distinguished service to the community and the nation is a very right and proper thing, but I say that an honour which has been bought by hard cash, and a party which has been bought by hard cash, is something which only merits thorough contempt, and I hope the House will endorse that view.

Mr. W. THORNE: Will the Prime Minister give facilities for the passage of the Bill?

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Thurtle, Mr. Bromley, Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Lansbury, Mr. Maxton, Mr. Stephen, and Mr. Wellock.

SALE OF HONOURS (PROHIBITION) BILL,

"to make illegal any arrangement or agreement concluded with the object of recommending the conferring of any title or honour upon any person in return for a donation to a political party fund," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to he read a Second time upon Friday, and to be printed. [Bill 73.]

SALE OF FOOD AND DRUGS BILL.

Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee A.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 71.]

VINEGAR BILL.

"to define vinegar and liquids made in imitation of vinegar, and to regulate the sale thereof; and for purposes relating thereto," presented by Sir WILFRID SUGDEN; to be read a Second time upon Monday, 21st March, and to be printed. [Bill 72.]

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

STANDING COMMITTEE A.

Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee A: Mr. Roy Bird and Mr. Sandeman; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Ernest Alexander and Mr. Nuttall.

STANDING COMMITTEE B.

Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON further reported from the Committee; That they had nominated the following Members to serve on Standing Committee B: Colonel Applin, Mr. Barr, Mr. Batey, Captain Bullock, Sir Herbert Cunliffe, Mr. Evan Davies, Mr. Drewe, Mr. Erskine, Mr. Forrest, Mr. David Grenfell, Mr. Hammersley, Mr. Harmsworth, Major Hills, Mr. William Hirst, Lieut.-General Sir Arthur Holland, Captain Arthur Hope, Mr. Lee, Mr. Looker, Major-General Sir Richard Luce, Mr. Mackinder, Major Alan McLean, Lieut.-Colonel Mason, Sir Cooper Rawson, Mr. Ritson, Mr. West Russell, Viscount Sandon, Mr. Scrymgeour, Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Smith-Carrington, Mr. Oliver Stanley, Major Steel, Sir Wilfrid Sugden, Mr. Trevelyan Thomson, Mr. Tinker, Major the Marquess of Titch-
field, Captain Waterhouse, Mr. Wells, Mr. Alfred Williams, Lieut.-Colonel Winby, and Mr. Edmund Wood.

Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON further reported from the Committee; That they had added the following Fifteen Members to Standing Committee B (in respect of the Forestry Bill): Mr. Buxton, Sir George Courthope, Earl of Dalkeith, Sir Leolin Forestier-Walker, Secretary Sir John Gilmour, Mr. Harney, Sir Alfred Hopkinson, Lieut. General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston, Mr. Johnston, Mr. McNeill, Sir Douglas Newton, Mr. Purcell, Mr. Riley, Sir Alexander Sprot, and Mr. Hilton Young.

SCOTTISH STANDING COMMITTEE.

Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON further reported from the Committee: That the following Members representing Scottish Constituencies are appointed to serve on the Standing Committee for the consideration of all Public Bills relating exclusively to Scotland and committed to a Standing Committee: Mr. William Adamson, Brigadier-General Sir William Alexander, Duchess of Atholl, Mr. Barclay-Harvey, Mr. Barr, Sir George Berry, Mr. Boothby, Mr. James Brown, Mr. Buchanan, Sir Samuel Chapman, Brigadier-General Charteris, Commander Cochrane, Sir Godfrey Collins, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Cowan, Sir Henry Craik, Colonel Crookshank,, Earl of Dalkeith, Major Elliot, Commander Fanshawe, Sir Patrick Ford, Secretary Sir John Gilmour, Mr. Duncan Graham, Mr. William Graham, Sir Robert Hamilton, Mr. Hardie, Mr. Thomas Henderson, Sir Harry Hope, Sir Robert Horne" Lieut.-Colonel Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston, Mr. Clark Hutchison, Sir Robert Hutchison, Mr. Johnston, Mr. Thomas Kennedy, Mr. Kidd, Mr. Kirkwood, Major BrounLindsay, Mr. Livingstone, Major Mac-Andrew, Sir Murdoch Macdonald, Mr. Robert MacDonald, Mr. Maclntyre, Mr. Neil Maclean, Mr. Macpherson, Mr. Macquisten, Mr. Maxton, Mr. Rosslyn Mitchell, Mr. Stephen Mitchell, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Moore, Mr. Murnin, Mr. Rose, Mr. Scrymgeour, Lieut.-Colonel McInnes Shaw, Dr. Shiels, Major Sir Archibald Sinclair, Mr. Skelton, Mr. Robert Smith, Mr. Solicitor-General for Scotland, Sir Alexander Sprot, Mr. Stephen, Mr. James Stewart, Captain Streatfeild, Mr.
James Stuart, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Templeton, Lieut.-Colonel Thom, Mr. Frederick Thomson, Mr. McLean Watson, Mr. Weir, Mr. Welsh, Mr. Westwood, Mr. Wheatley and Mr. Wright.

Reports to lie upon the Table.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. JAMES HOPE in the Chair.]

ARMY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1926–27.

Orders of the Day — DESPATCH OF TROOPS TO CHINA.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £950,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1927, for Expenditure arising out of the despatch of Troops to China.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Captain Douglas King): In presenting this Supplementary Estimate there will be no need for me to enter into any question of policy. The reasons which decided the Government to despatch a force for the protection of the lives and property of British nationals at Shanghai are already well known, but I think it may be of interest if I give hon. Members some account of the arrangements which necessarily had to be made by the War Office in despatching this force. The sequence of events was as follows:—On 18th January the Board of Trade were authorised to make the necessary arrangements for the taking up of ships and the accommodation of troops. The Government, not wishing to take any decisive military action until the last possible moment, did not authorise the War Office to take the necessary military action until 21st January. On that day warning orders to the units selected to go to China were dispatched. On the same day notices calling up men of Section A of the Army Reserve were posted to them. The calling up of these men was necessary in order to bring the selected units up to the necessary establishments.
I might explain to the Committee that Section A of the Reserve is composed of men who undertake the liability to come up for service at any time within two years of their leaving the Colours. For that liability they receive an addition to their Reserve pay of 6d. a day; that is, they receive 6d. a day more than the
men in the other classes of the Reserve. Notices were sent to 1,581 men, and it is very satisfactory to know that of that number only four failed to reply and were absent without sending sufficient reason. With regard to the force itself, the situation in China was not such as to demand the despatch of a division of the Expeditionary Force. It was therefore necessary to consider and decide what force should be sent. It was finally decided that a force from this country of two infantry brigades, with ancillary units and with munitions, stores and medical personnel, should be despatched. When one realises the work that was entailed, first of all in organising the force without in any way disorganising the organisation of the Expeditionary Force, and the work of calling up the A Reservists, I think it is very creditable that it was possible in such a short time to despatch the force.
The first transport left this country on 25th January, only four days after the calling-up notices had been issued. Between 25th and 29th January, inclusive, that is five days, six transports left this country, conveying practically the whole of the Shanghai Defence Force. It included the whole of the rifle strength and most of the ancillary troops. Two ships left at later dates with small units of artillery and with the necessary stores and munitions. The first of those transports arrived at Shanghai on 26th February, and the last ship, containing details and stores, is due to arrive at Hong Kong by 18th March. I think the Committee will appreciate the satisfactory nature of an organisation which made it possible to despatch a force of that size from this country a distance of over 10,500 miles, and to land them there in a space of less than two months from the time the first orders were given. I think hon. Members would agree that it reflects the greatest credit on the military and civilian staff, not only at the War Moe, hut also in the commands and districts affected; also it reflects great credit on the officials of the Board of Trade, who have to make the whole of the arrangements for calling up the ships, for seeing them fitted and properly equipped for the reception of troops. The whole of that movement was carried out with very little fuss and with no ostentation. We
may well be proud of the way in which the War Department carried out that duty.
With those few introductory remarks I turn to the items of the Supplementary Estimates. In the first place, there are some items under Vote 1. Sub-head A is the pay, etc., of officers on regimental establishment. That item and several others are due to the transfer of certain British troops with the Indian Brigade which has now come on to British establishment. It is unnecessary for me to explain that this Supplementary Estimate is merely for money which will be expended before the end of this month, that is before the end of the present financial year; so that that particular figure is for the transfer, during that period, of those British units which have previously been on the Indian establishment. The whole of Vote 1 is either for those units that have been transferred from the Indian to British establishment or for the pay of the Army reservists, Class A, to whom I have already alluded.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does this mean that we are going to pay the total expenditure of the Indian units that were sent?

4.0.p.m.

Captain KING: It has not yet been decided upon whom the actual cost will eventually fall, but the whole cost is brought into account in this Supplementary Estimate, both for the British troops and also the Indian troops which are out there with the 20th Indian Infantry Brigade. With regard to Vote 3, the sending of this force to China entailed sending a very considerable, and inadequate medical staff with them, and the sending of medical staff from this country has necessitated the calling up of certain medical reserve officers and also the bringing in of certain civilian personnel to take the place of the medical personnel who have gone out with the Shanghai Defence Force. The rents shown in Vote 5 are the rents which we are having to pay for buildings at Hong Kong and Shanghai. Vote 6 covers the additional cost of feeding the British troops in China as compared with the cost of feeding them at home, and the additional cost of feeding the troops tram India. It also includes extra amounts for remounts and for forage.
That is because the Colonial Establishments, under which these troops proceed to Shanghai, are higher than the Home Establishments. Vote 7 includes the issues of clothing which have been withdrawn from stocks and which will have to be and which are being replaced during this present financial year. Vote 8, General stores, includes equipment, and blankets, which have been drawn from stocks, and which are also being replaced. Vote 9, Warlike and Engineer Technical Stores, includes spares for armoured cars, sandbags, telegraph equipment, and so on. Vote 10 covers the construction and adaptation of accommodation both at Shanghai and at Hong Kong, and Vote 11 covers the point which the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Ken-worthy) raised with regard to the Indian troops. Vote 11DD is mainly for the maintenance of the Indian native troops which have come on to our charge under the British Establishments.

Mr. KELLY: Does the item in Vote 6, "Wages of Civilian Subordinates," mean that you are sending civilians out as well?

Captain KING: Those civilian subordinates are to replace members of the Royal Army Service Corps who have been sent out with the force. We have taken civilians on in this country to carry on the work, mostly the repair of motor vehicles, of Royal Army Service Corps men who have been sent abroad.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Is that a new departure, or is it old custom?

Captain KING: It is a necessary action. We have to send out men of the Royal Army Service Corps with the troops, and to carry on the work, which is necessary in this country, we are employing civilians.

Mr. WALLHEAD: The point is whether it has been done before or whether it is a new policy due to the mechanisation of certain services.

Captain KING: The hon. Member below the hon. Gentleman will be able to tell him that we employ many civilians in the Royal Army Service Corps. We have a depot at Feltham, where until recently the whole of the work was carried out by civilians. We have a large number of civilians employed on military work, both
on the repair of motor vehicles and other services. It is no new thing for us to employ civilian labour in replacement when there is a shortage of Royal Army Service Corps personnel. There is one point which I left out because I thought there might be some question raised on it. It is with regard to the payment for sea transport. The Committee will notice that the cost of conveyance by sea is put at a sum of £530,000. Hon. Members will remember that, in reply to a question in the House a few weeks ago, my right hon. Friend gave the total cost of the transportation by sea of the Shanghai Defence Force as, I think, £645,000. I want the Committee to understand that this £530,000 represents the payments which become due within the present month before the end of the financial year, and does not represent or correspond to the total figure given in reply to a question recently in the House. I think that those are all the points. The Vote is set out in detail, and I think the explanation that I have given should be sufficient to clear up most of the points which may arise. I hope that the Committee, after consideration of the Supplementary Estimate, will allow us to take it without undue discussion.

Mr. CLYNES: I have no doubt that the Committee will feel a very natural appreciation of the efficient manner in which the War Office have carried out their technical and other duties in regard to the despatch of troops to Shanghai. I conclude that the consideration of the Supplementary Estimate will permit of some reference to this subject having a wider range and being, of a more general character than any observations which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has adressed to the Committee. Accordingly, we would like to return, if only for the purpose of emphasising or restating it, to the position we have thought it proper to take up with regard to the despatch of troops. When some time ago the House was considering this general question, the Foreign Secretary closed his speech by appealing to the House to be careful not to convey any wrong impression to people in other lands who may be interested in this question. I think that we are entitled to ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, when speaking in this House and
out of it, to avoid creating any improper and inaccurate impression as to what is our position in regard to this question. We observe that with great persistence and assiduity right hon. Gentlemen who are members of the Cabinet continue to misinform the country as to the course which we have thought it proper to take. In our minds, the issues which have been raised required skilful and patient negotiation, and it cannot be said that any speaker authorised to make a declaration for His Majesty's Opposition, either in the country or in this House, has ever criticised the course of Government policy so far as that policy related to negotiation and so far as it has been an endeavour to seek and secure a peaceful arrangement as between the Chinese authorities and ourselves. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has to his account a long list of very helpful pronouncements—at any rate, helpful in our judgment—in regard to the Government's endeavour, so far as that endeavour was to arrange differences between China and ourselves upon a peaceful basis.
We consider that the choice of the Government was between the effective use of far-seeing statesmanship and the dangerous and futile use of the sword. It is unfortunate, I think, for the handling of the questions at issue that the announcements of the Government's intention and willingness to accept new terms, to make very considerable concessions, and to forego certain privileges acquired very long ago was so long delayed. The public being uninformed, was then easily misinformed, and there was a great deal o f bewilderment and doubt as to what really the Government intended to do. The Government, in short, reached a stage where they were trying at one and the same time to negotiate and to show fight; to parade all their instruments of warlike authority, and at the same time to make suggestions and proposals for a pacific settlement. In our view, an alternative to that line of action would have been a public offer of fair terms for China, coupled with a proper request to China for the safety of British residents in that country. We are Es concerned for the safety of British subjects in China as any other party in this House. Our difference with the Government is a difference of method. We believe, while
differences are arising and developing, in applying the spirit of the League of Nations and not the warlike spirit that has been too often manifested.
I repeat that our concern for the safety of British residents in China is as deep and real as the concern entertained by any other party in this House. Indeed, I would go further and say that, while willing to share in the cry, "Hands off China," I would also add, "Hands off peaceful Britishers resident in China." Our reputation in China on any industrial ground will, I think, stand fair examination compared with that of any other country responsible for the conduct of industry in that country. There is a great deal of misapprehension under this head. I want, therefore, to regard British residents in China as having rights as precious as British residents in this country, but those rights must be preserved and maintained consistent with the complete independence of China and with an unqualified recognition of the sovereignty of the people of that country within their own land.

Mr. MACPHERSON: I do not wish to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but may I, Mr. Hope, ask for your guidance on this point? Are we entitled on this Supplementary Estimate to discuss the Chinese policy?

The CHAIRMAN: This Estimate, though not presented technically in the form of a new Service, is, in effect, a request for new expenditure arising out of new circumstances which have produced the necessity for a fresh departure. Therefore, I think it is in order to discuss the policy which has led to that departure.

Mr. CLYNES: I thought we had not at this early stage exhausted all opportunities for discussing the policy of the Government on this important matter; I was saying that we have done something in China, in the matter of industrial example and in endeavouring to raise industrial standards, to secure conditions of greater harmony in the relations between China and this country. It is in our political policy that we have failed and not in any industrial pursuits which have been followed. In the whole of China there are some 120 cotton mills, apart from other industrial establishments and works of various sorts, and 73
of these mills are Chinese cotton mills, and only four or five are British. From information within the reach of all I think it must be allowed that, while standards are low and while they afford a fruitful soil for the growth of discontent among the Chinese workers, it cannot be said that British endeavour in China has not aimed at raising the standards of industry compared with the efforts of the owners of the other mills. I repeat, therefore, that it is in our political policy and not in our industrial pursuits that we have failed. Therefore we must have all the closer regard to that political policy and to those who are responsible for it. Accordingly, we say that a special expedition, as a first move, and while diplomatic action was being taken, was a provocative and unnecessary measure, which tended rather to obstruct than to advance the prospects of a pacific settlement. We had in China in that part which was deemed to be the centre of risk or danger, a police force. We have volunteer forces. There were, if the need arose, ships in Chinese waters, and there was no evidence whatever of any impending danger to justify the menacing move that was taken some time ago by the Government of the day.

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): Is the right hon. Gentleman referring to Shanghai?

Mr. CLYNES: I am referring to Shanghai. These warlike measures, in our judgment, were more likely to arouse danger than to secure safely. If I offer any criticism, of the statement of the hon. Gentleman who recited these measures, step by step, as they were taken in connection with this expedition, it would be to complain of the too full employment of the camera man, the photographer, the Press agent, in the matter of the despatch of these forces. The effect upon the public mind and upon the mind of China of this sort of military demonstration cannot be a help to negotiation, and it can be of no service on the purely efficient or technical side of the transport of troops. I object then to any parade of power of this kind on such an occasion. I have referred to statements made outside this House by Ministers of the Crown. I observe that the Opposition has been singled out for special attack by the Secretary of State for India. The
Secretary of State for India is a Peer with great resourcefulness of language and a power of picturesque description which many a man might envy, but I fear his efforts are proving somewhat exhausting, and on the last occasion he could say nothing better than that it was a vile thing on the part of the Opposition to take the step, which was an endeavour on our part to open out negotiations with the Chinese leaders.

The CHAIRMAN: I presume this was said outside the House of Lords.

Mr. CLYNES: It was, Sir, and if it he not proper to refer to it here —

The CHAIRMAN: That was really the point. There is a rule against replying in this House to speeches made in the other House.

Mr. CLYNES: I am not referring to a speech made in the other place, but to a recent speech in the country by the Secretary of State for India. As a matter of fact, the Opposition never made any attempt to negotiate with any Chinese leader. We are not responsible for negotiation. The responsibility is with His Majesty's Ministers, but while the Government are responsible the Opposition have a duty, and that duty we have endeavoured to perform. Indeed, we have performed it with every evidence of popular approval, and so far as the country has had an opportunity of giving any verdict, as in the case of the Stour-bridge election, since this crisis arose, since the Opposition took its step in making certain suggestions to Chinese leaders, since the country could in any way make a pronouncement on that score, that pronouncement has been overwhelmingly in favour of the course taken by the Opposition. Our criticism, in short, has been measured by an unqualified anxiety for peaceful arrangements as between the two countries. We saw the danger to other British residents in other parts of China from the step taken by the Government in sending troops to only one part of China. Of course it was physically impossible for this country to send troops to every part of China, but we might have thought more evenly of the rights and safety of British subjects in the numerous other parts of China where they are resident. What was it that was said on behalf of
the Opposition in the early stages when pronouncements were made by the representatives of Labour? First let me say, that before any message was sent anywhere, before any statement was made in the Press, the representatives of both the industrial and political sides of organised labour sent a deputation to the Foreign Secretary on two occasions. That deputation was introduced by the Leader of the Opposition. Our purpose was to seek the fullest and most reliable information and to take no public action which would not be in the interests of the country and of a peaceful settlement. Having taken that course, what was it that was said in the public manifesto of the Labour party? It was this:
The British Labour movement calls for the patient and honest pursuit of peaceful negotiations with China freed from the menace of armed force for the ultimate abrogation of treaties that have now no right to be in force and for amicable arrangements for the immediate winding up of conditions which depend directly or indirectly upon the existence of those Treaties.
Further, we said:
The British Labour movement sends to the Chinese workers its most sincere sympathy and support in their attemps to improve their economic condition and its hope that by a firm hut peaceful policy of negotiation they will guide their country through its present difficulties and dangers.
I say there is not it that manifesto, or any other declaration made by anyone authorised to speak for the Labour party or the Opposition, one objectionable word or one word that could be construed as in any sense dangerous to the national interest or to those who are really anxious for a peaceful settlement. We felt that our purpose should be to speak in the terms of just dealing with China and not merely to use our enormous military and mechanical power. We have had many examples of the cost and folly of merely thinking in the terms of the gun. I can recall the eve of the Boer War when the feeling that was provoked was one that the affair would be no more than a joyful holiday, but after years of conflict we found that the victory which was won was submerged in the humiliation we had to endure because of a conflict of that kind. Later on and now vividly within our memories, there was the Irish conflict. I can recall in this House how furious were Members on the
Government side at Opposition criticism and how the feeling grew that there was nothing for it but to shoot men out of hand. I suppose all men now see the folly of that doctrine, save and except alone, perhaps, the Postmaster-General, who has not yet learned its folly.

The CHAIRMAN: I do not think I can allow the Postmaster-General to reply and therefore I do not think he ought to be referred to.

Mr. CLYNES: If I am to be guided by that pronouncement from the Chair there still remains an opportunity for saying something outside the House on the declaration to which I refer. I merely wanted to put under that heading the view that the mere use of superior force can, if not always, at least very frequently, be rendered impotent by public resentment and the civil and moral indignation of great communities. It is wrong in our judgment to think only of immediate results. It is necessary in these matters to look a long way ahead. Immediate results have often been costly. We have had to pay dearly for them as time has gone on. On whatever other points there may be difference I am glad to think there is agreement on this—that the Chinese demands, so far as they have been formulated, are obviously fair and reasonable. There is an awakening of new hopes and aspirations on the part of the Chinese. That feeling was admitted frankly in the message of the Foreign Secretary issued about the Christmas period in which to a great extent the Government's views were formulated. It was even more emphatically admitted in the statement, which I thought did great credit to the `Under-Secretary, whose speech I listened to with admiration only a few days ago. In short, there is a universal admission that the Treaties upon which we have claimed rights and upon which we have traded have in the main not been Treaties at all—that is to say, agreements freely and frankly entered into by two parties able equally to make bargains or to refuse to make bargains if they so desire. In the trade union and industrial service we have had conditions where one side has been compelled to yield to the other because they could no longer resist or hold out and when terms have been signed the document has been called an
agreement. It is really not an agreement unless the two people voluntarily agree to the conditions.
I wish to say two or three words on the purely trade side of the question. It is not a mercenary side of the subject. The world has an interest in trade and I would urge so far as we have been trading with China the benefit has been mutual. It has been as much for China's good as for our own. We must seek markets, though we ought to discard in these days the doctrine which has done so _much damage in the past that "trade follows the flag." Trade does not follow the flag if the flag goes before the sword and the cannon. That, at any rate, was learned by our experiences of quite recent years. We have a special concern in trade with China, and the Government policy in connection with this Expeditionary Defence Force does touch most intimately this trade aspect of the question. China, in the matter of cotton goods, has been our largest foreign customer for long, and our second greatest customer in any part of the world. I might express it, as I have seen the figures, in terms of square yards of cotton goods. It will be seen from figures that are reliable that, taking an average year, taking a group of years and then striking an average for any one year in the years just prior to the War, the exports of cotton goods to China reached the colossal length of 500,000,000 yards. See to what that has fallen. It has fallen, I am told, in the last year or two down to 177,000,000 yards. We may not for the moment, just this week or last week or next month, appreciate or feel fully the complete effects of that very serious drop in our exports—warehouse and other conditions make that impossible—but it must be felt hereafter. If the figures which I have just given are questioned or not thought reliable I would ask the attention of hon. and right hon. Members to a very informative article which appears in the "Manchester Guardian" of this morning by Mr. Gull, he being the late Secretary of the British Chambers of Commerce in China. Mr. Gull clearly speaks with great knowledge and authority on this matter, and he puts this _matter of cotton exportation in terms not of yards but of pieces of cotton goods. He points out that in 1913, the number of pieces exported to China was
just short of 15,000,000 pieces, and in 1925 that dropped down to a little more than 4,000,000 pieces.

Captain BRASS: Has the right hon. Gentleman got the Indian figures?

Mr. CLYNES: No, I have not, and I am not sure that that would touch the argument. Unfortunately, in the case of India, the drop was due largely to the same cause, political policy, though this is not the moment to argue further on that question of India. I have said that there has been a good deal of delusion on this question of trade following the flag, and of its being essential that we should retain a show of military prowess and territorial rights in other lands in order that our trade should be maintained. Mr. Gull, with his very considerable knowledge of China, shows what an illusion that is, as it is known that both Germany and Russia have not now got the territorial rights in China that we have. This is what Mr. Gull says:
Is it possible … to draw any deductions from the position of German and Russian trade, which is distinguished from other foreign trade in that it is not now associated with 'rights' in the sense that ours is? This can be said: that loss of rights has not affected either German or Russian figures.
In all these matters there is a natural partisan inclination to blame the agitator, in this case usually the Russian agitator. Our trade has been downed, it is said, by Russian propaganda. Well, if our reputation in any part of the world cannot withstand Russian propaganda, so much the worse for our reputation. It is that reputation that we want to repair and to raise. On this Order Paper there are various Amendments in the name of hon. Members and myself to move that this Vote for nearly —1,000,000 should be reduced by £100. We do not propose to move any such Amendment, our objection being to the expenditure of any money whatever on expeditions so unnecessary, so provocative, and so harmful as this one, and as our objection is to the whole sum, I hope that my hon. Friends will, when the Vote is put from the Chair, take the opportunity of voting against every penny of it.

Mr. LOOKER: I should like to congratulate my right hon. Friend the
Minister for War on the expedition and efficiency with which this Defence Force was sent out to Shanghai. It was despatched at a critical moment, when time was of the utmost importance, and I think the arrangements made by him and his staff and subordinates for sending it off with the least possible delay reflect the utmost credit on his Department, and will be very greatly appreciated in China itself. I should also like to say that I was very glad indeed to hear the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) speak of the position and the part which British industrial interests in China have played as regards raising the standard of living of those whom they employ. It is very refreshing and encouraging to get an acknowledgment like that from that side of the House; it is in great contrast to what we generally hear from some of those who sit on the back benches opposite. I am glad that the British interests in China have at last been vindicated from so authoritative a source.
I should like to say a few words about some remarks of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the Treaties which exist between us and China, to which he referred as not being Treaties of a real description, but as being something else, the exact nature of which he did not detail. I have no desire to go into the history of China, under which the present Treaties with us arose, but I should like to say that during the negotiations for the Treaty of Nanking, under which our present rights and possessions in China were arranged and provided for, the Chief Chinese emissary, who was engaged in the peace negotiations with His Majesty's plenipotentiary, wrote a letter to His Majesty's representative, in which he used these words:
The English at Canton had been exposed to insults and extortions over a series of years, and steps should be taken to ensure in future that they might carry on their commerce to advantage and not receive injury thereby
Those were the conditions which led to various areas being set apart in China where our people could live and trade in peace and security under the jurisdiction of their own laws and under whatever protection could be afforded them by their own country, and that is where they have lived and traded in peace, security, and friendship ever since. The fact that these precautions were necessary for their
safety has been abundantly shown time after time during all the intervening years since that date.
What I chiefly rose to speak about, however, was the question of the sending of the Defence Force. The right hon. Member for Platting told us that, while he is as solicitous as anyone for the safety of the British communities in China, he would have provided for their safety by methods of negotiation, rather than by the futile and dangerous method of the sword. He has told us that there is no evidence of any description to justify the military measures which have been taken by the Government, or the spending of any money at all on an expedition of so provocative a nature. I should like to lay before the Committee the exact position which existed in China and led to the necessity for that Expeditionary Force being sent.

Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD: Defence Force!

Mr. LOOKER: I beg pardon, I meant Defence Force. The position is this: The Cantonese, who were conducting a campaign in order to obtain control of the greater part of the country, had organised as part of their campaign a propaganda corps, whose duty it was to go ahead or alongside of the army and arouse the rest of China in the Cantonese cause. Their chief weapon in this campaign was an anti-British and anti-Imperialist corps, and whenever they got near a foreign settlement we found anti-British posters, inciting the Chinese inhabitants to rise against the British, appearing all over the place and particularly in the British settlements. Side by side with that, wherever they went, they instigated the Chinese to form labour unions and at once to strike for better conditions, with the result that they created chaos in whatever Chinese towns they came across, and greatly added to the danger, not only of the British there, but of the Chinese inhabitants as well.
When they arrived at Hankow, they first of all engineered a strike among the servants of the British community there. They endeavoured to deprive the British of all their servants, and to deprive them of food supplies from Chinese sources. In addition to that, they aroused all the
turbulent inhabitants of the native city to make a mob demonstration against the British Concession there, so much so that it was necessary for our people to send a force on there to protect the British community from the effects of mob violence, which might have taken place if there had been no protective force available. After standing all day, with great restraint, under conditions of great provocation, endeavouring to prevent the Chinese mob from overflowing the British Concession, it was finally decided to withdraw the Marines, because our authorities were warned that if any incident occurred leading to Chinese loss of life, the Chinese authorities could not guarantee that the Chinese troops in the neighbourhood would not take part, and the Chinese authorities would not be responsible for the consequences. It was under those conditions that the Marines were withdrawn, and the Chinese authorities took over the control of the Concession.
It was obvious that these tactics, which the Cantonese were employing in order as far as possible to gain their aim of getting these Concessions back from the position which they occupied under the Treaty, would be repeated at every Treaty port down the river, and particularly at Shanghai, and it was also clear that, if they were repeated at Shanghai, the consequences might be of a far more serious nature indeed. I should like to remind the Committee that the British population in the International Settlement at Shanghai is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 9,000, but the total foreign population is somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000, that 60 per cent. of the trade of China passes through Shanghai, that some 40 per cent. to 60 per cent. of the revenue of China is secured there, and that it necessarily and inevitably forms a very valuable prize for any of these military authorities who are desperately in need of funds. In addition to that, there is in the International Settlement a Chinese population of something approaching 1,000,000 people, and among this population agitators had been busy for months before, preparing for the time when the Cantonese troops arrived in the vicinity of the city. They had been engineering strikes, engineering agitation, engineering mob demonstration, and if once the forces they had aroused got
out of hand, it would have been impossible to say what the consequences might have been to the British population there.
It was inevitable, in those circumstances, that any Government which claimed to have any attributes of Government at all, should take such steps as were necessary to protect its own subjects from the consequences of violence of that description. The local forces were clearly not sufficient for the purpose, and if any mob rising had occurred, and no defence force had been sent, and the same result had happened there as at Hankow, what would our position have been throughout the whole of the East? It would have had most serious repercussions and consequences throughout the whole of those countries which the British Government govern, and it would have been impossible to say where the consequences would stop. The right hon. Member for Platting and hon. Members opposite have referred to the sending of this Defence Force as an extraordinarily provocative act, and as increasing the dangers of the British subjects who are in the interior of China. But I think they fail to realise what the exact position was. So far from it being a provocative act, so far from it increasing those dangers, it increased the safety of those people, because, if there had been a mob demonstration in Shanghai, with the inadequate forces available, almost inevitably it would have gone near to success, and in endeavouring to cope with it some incident would have arisen which would have given the agitators all over China excuses against the British, incited them to acts of aggression against the British, and added considerably to the peril of people in the interior.
The presence of this Defence Force will remove beyond all reasonable possibility any prospect of such consequences taking place. It will add to the security, not only of the British in Shanghai but of every British subject who is at present in more distant parts of China. Of course it will prevent, in all reasonable probability, any incident arising that would give the Chinese agitators any excuse for creating and fomenting an attack against our people anywhere throughout the land. Not only that, but the presence of the troops there has been welcomed, and is welcomed by the great
majority of Chinese themselves who live in the International Settlement. They know perfectly well that a force of that description, which is not sent there, as they know and believe, for aggressive purposes, will prove a very strong and stabilising element in the Settlement, and will tend to preserve them as well as British subjects from the consequences of mob violence, or from the acts of a defeated or victorious soldiery. We have telegrams from Shanghai since the Defence Force arrived there stating that their presence is regarded, not only with great satisfaction by law-abiding citizens and by the merchants in particular but we have also evidence that several of the more prominent leaders have expressly said they have no objection whatever to our taking these defensive steps, which they regard as a very natural thing to have done in the circimstance.
The right hon. Member for Platting has told us he hopes we shall be careful not to misconstrue what is said by his party outside the House, but if you look at the speeches made at the meetings of the party to which he belongs, we find a very different atmosphere prevailing from that which we should expect to find if we are to believe the right hon. Gentle man's remarks. I will merely give one quotation from a meeting at Stratford, on the 26th February, under the auspices of the Stratford (No. 2) Branch of the National Union of Railwaymen, in which this remark was ma de by Mr. Malone, who has recently published a pamphlet on China under the auspices of the Independent Labour party, and, as far as I know, is largely responsible for the activities of the China Information Bureau. He said it was not so much a question of women and children being in danger, as dividends and profits. I will ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he Or any of his colleagues on the Front Bench can possibly justify a statement of that sort. When I hear him talk about the utterly unnecessary Defence Force which has been sent, I cannot help remembering the remarks of the right hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. R. Mac Donald), when he said it was impossible for us to scuttle out of these concessions. If we are not to scuttle out of them, surely we must take the necessary measures to see that our people there are protected and our rights maintained.
What method can the right hon. Gentleman suggest, except taking necessary and adequate measures to send a Defence Force there in order to preserve our own people and their rights? I hope this House, when it comes to vote upon this, will show in the most unmistakable and overwhelming manner its opinion both of the policy of the Government and its approval of the steps they have taken to protect British interests abroad.

Mr. MACPHERSON: I did not realise this afternoon that a discussion of this Supplementary Estimate would entail a discussion of the policy with regard to China. However, I do not think it does any harm to have a discussion of that kind. The speech of the right hon Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) was in many respects an apologia for his party and a vindication of their attitude. I do not say that any Member of this House adopts the attitude, and certainly not single Member of the Front Opposition Bench, but it is a curious thing that, when this country, when the Empire has a difference with any other country in the world, our own country at home does not get the same chance that a criminal gets in the dock. We have the very sound principle in English law that no man who stands upon his trial is considered guilty until his guilt has been proved, but too many people in our country rush on to the platform and into public print, and condemn and attack the policy of our country and Empire without waiting to listen to the other side of the case.

Mr. MAXTON: Who did it?

Mr. MACPHERSON: If the cap fits anybody let him put it on.

Mr. MAXTON: The right hon. Gentleman refers to statements that are made. He uses very wide generalities, but excludes explicitly the Labour Front Bench. Presumably it is on the back Labour Bench. Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman be honest and courageous enough to say it?

Mr. MACPHERSON: It is the custom of the House not to impute motives to individuals.

Mr. MAXTON: But you generalise in making suggestions.

Mr. MACPHERSON: I think it is a perfectly proper form of debate to generalise, and if any hon. Member afterwards differs from any statement I have made, I will give myself the pleasure of listening to him patiently while he disowns it. If any hon. Member above the Gangway likes to disown the statement I have made, I shall carefully listen to him.

Mr. MAXTON: I put it to you, Mr. hope —

The CHAIRMAN: I must ask the hon. Member not to interrupt. If he has anything special to say, there will be an opportunity later of saying it.

Mr. MAXTON: The right hon. Gentleman has given way to me. It is not usual, or the practice, I hope, in this House for any hon. or right hon. Gentleman to make a general statement for which there is no foundation in fact, at all.

The CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman is not out of order.

Mr. MACPHERSON: The hon. Gentleman, I hope, will not believe that I meant in the slightest degree to be offensive to any Member of this House. I have no donut if hon. Members above the Gangway held the view I have expressed, they would be only too glad to express it. Whatever differences of opinion there may be with regard to Chinese policy above the Gangway, I do not think the party to which I belong, whatever other differences there may be, has any difference now with regard to that policy. It fell to the lot of the party to which I belong to interpret—and, in my judgment, rightly interpret —the opinion of the country—the just and sane opinion of the country —on three distinct occasions recently. The first was during the Great War. It then fell to the leaders of the Liberal party to interpret that opinion. It fell to the leaders of that party to interpret and to expound public opinion during the General Strike, and it fell to them, in a way of which the public approve, to interpret what I regard as the right Liberal policy on the Chinese question.

Mr. WALLHEAD: The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), speaking at Bradford, referred to "incalculable greed."

Mr. MACPHERSON: Whatever my right hon. Friend said at Bradford, I heard him in this House approve of the policy of the Government, and that is what I have to go upon at this moment. The policy of the Government on China is a sane and wise one. What are the facts? You have in the Far East a great population, in many cases a population of pioneers, men who went to the uttermost parts of the earth in order to found what they were perfectly entitled to found—the great industries of our Empire. They did not go there to grab or steal those territories. They went there under Treaties, and they established those industries there with care, with forethought, with courage, with thrift, with energy and, in the course of time, after they had devoted their lives, and the lives of their sons, and devoted their wealth to the establishment of those industries, a new change takes place in world events, and, quite suddenly, this country, which has always prided itself upon defending the rights and the property of its subjects, wherever they are in any part of the world, has, obviously, to face question, are we going to leave these men in danger, or are we not? I make bold to say there is not a man or woman in the country who has got a son or daughter who would not be the first to come forward and say that the British Government would be no government if for a moment they allowed these men to remain unprotected, and their rights and property unprotected in the Far East.
5.0.p.m.
I, for one—and I think I am voicing the opinion of the vast number of those who belong to my party—think that the Government were right and that their policy was sound. There was no threat of any sort or kind. I happened to be out of the country at the time, but I watched with the greatest care every single utterance of my right hon. Friends on the Government Bench and on the Front Opposition Bench, and there was no threat of any sort or kind, official or unofficial, against the Chinese. The spirit was the spirit of negotiation from beginning to end, and that spirit has prevailed throughout. We sent a force, as we ought to do and as we are entitled to do; we sent it not with ostentation nor with the blare of trumpets, but we sent it quietly. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, there was a
row!"] I think I am entitled to say this. I myself saw some of these troops departing, and there was no official instruction for the trumpets to blare or for the drums to beat or for flags to be waved except what was necessary for a battalion being embarked. If there was any show, what is the explanation? It was caused by the popular feeling that these men were leaving their homes on a just and righteous errand. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting talked about photographs. Were these taken by the Government? The fact remains that the intelligent Press of this country, knowing that there is very keen interest in movements of that kind, took every necessary step to take these photographs, and they were perfectly entitled to do so. To hear the speech made by the right hon. Member for Platting, it would be supposed that that was done by the Government, but I think that is stretching a very long point, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman did not really believe it when he said it.
The fact is that no body of men except the Expeditionary Force in 1914 ever left this country more quietly or more expeditiously. They have gone there to act as a police force, and their conduct shows that that was the instructions given to them, openly or secretly. Under great provocation, as we have seen from the accounts which have come home from the Far East, these splendid men of ours have shown admirable behaviour, good temper and good sense, and I think that, if any vote can be passed in appreciation of the work they are doing out there, not as a fighting force, but as a police force, in very grave circumstances, we ought to pass that vote with unanimity. Those men out there look to the House of Commons, not only for guidance, but for protection, and I am convinced that the moment they feel that a united British House of Commons is determined to maintain the life and property of British citizens out there, it will make the task of the expeditionary Defence Force very easy. In any case, I for one will support this Estimate, and I will go into the lobby in support of it.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) has come into conflict with his Leader in the House of Lords.

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot refer to what was said in another place.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I am sorry. At any rate he is in conflict with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) because that right hon. Gentleman has been very caustic in criticising this policy of the Government. I am sorry that the absence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty abroad has not led to that unity that I hoped it would lead to, and we see this conflict between him and his leader. I am reminded that the right hon. Gentleman, when he was Chief Secretary for Ireland, made from the Government Bench very similar speeches to that which he has made to-day. I used to sit in this corner, and I listened to the right hon. Gentleman speaking on the Front Government Bench and making the same speeches almost in the same sentences. I must say that he was not responsible for the worst phases of the Irish policy of the Government of that day, but he saw his policy played out in Ireland and the policy which we advocated on these benches adopted and successfully adopted there. I should have thought that he would have learned a little from what took place then. Do not let us get worked up about this subject. The Irish question bedevilled discussion for years in this House. It aroused great passion on either side, but let us look out at this question of China calmly. The hon. Member for South Eastern Essex (Mr. Looker), who speaks with great knowledge of China, made out a case for the defence of British subjects in Shanghai. If you take the question of Shanghai by itself, you can make out an overwhelmingly strong case for protecting these people. But we have a strong naval squadron there, and I should have thought that the naval force would have been quite sufficient to support the ordinary international volunteer force in the Concessions.
Why we should need 20,000 men for the defence of Shanghai, I do not really know. Why should we need heavy artillery? Why should we need tanks? Shanghai has changed hands, I think, four times in the last five years. When Sun Chuan-Fang, who has cleared out
with —100,000 loot, drove out another Chinese general, Chung Chang-Chung, who is now posing as the saviour of Shanghai, we never heard of relief forces being sent on that occasion. There was no question of sending any Defence Force until the Cantonese or the Nationalists forces or the Southerners, call them what you like, were approaching the Yangtse Valley and Shanghai. It was only then that we sent out this Army, with heavy artillery and tanks, to Shanghai. That is where we join issue with the Government. I spent three years on the China Station; I know Shanghai; I have been many miles up the Yangtse river, and I claim to know just a little about the Chinese. It is no good, in a case of this kind, taking the short view. The short view is to send out the largest army you can get and to use force, but the long view should be taken on an entirely different policy. Yesterday, I asked the Foreign Secretary two questions, and I think the answers are very significant. I asked him, first of all, how much trade is being carried on in the Yangtse-Kiang Valley at the present time. He gave the extraordinary information that, as regards the trade above Hankow and Ichang, there is very little going on. If our trade has stopped above Hankow, then I hold that the Government's policy has failed.

Mr. LOOKER: May I ask whether the Government's policy is not directed to protecting the lives of our people rather than protecting trade?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: You can protect their lives, but these people will not be able to live in Shanghai if this trade is cut off, and if no more trade can be done with the rest of China. Those 8,000 people living in Shanghai are not living there for their health, but to make money, and if no trade is possible under the British flag, these people will have to remove.

Mr. LOOKER: The upper portion of the Yangtse Valley is not the only district with which trade is done from Shanghai.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: But does the hon. Gentleman not know that the trade in the Yangtse Valley is by far the most important in China for Shanghai? The Manchurian trade is
now in the hands of the Japanese; we have lost that. Fifty per cent. or 60 per cent. of our trade is up the Yangtse river, and, if that trade is stopped, Shanghai becomes bankrupt and those 8,000 people will have to go away and only our Army will he left. Now I come to the question of life. Yesterday I asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he could make any statement with reference to the Church Missionary Society Hospital at Hangchow, which was reported to be occupied by Chinese soldiers on the 24th February, and also with regard to Ningpo Trinity College, also belonging to the Church Missionary Society, which was reported as occupied by Chinese soldiers. With regard to Hangchow, I am informed that our missionaries and nurses and others in the hospital have had to leave and that at Ningpo, according to the Press and the telegrams which have been received by the Church Missionary Society, our people have had to evacuate it as well. What is the use of holding on to this concession at Shanghai, large and wealthy and gorgeous as it is, if British interests in every part of China are to be made less? That is to be the result of this policy on the long view. May I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are so anxious, as we are, to see human life preserved, do they altogether approve of the action of their allies? Do they approve of the Chinese generals who are holding the great native city outside the concessions?

Vice-Admiral Sir REGINALD HALL: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but I would like to ask what authority he has for saying that we have any allies in China?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Anyone who knows what is happening in China—

Sir R. HALL: What authority has the hon. and gallant Gentleman for the statement he has made?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I do plead that we should tackle this question in a calm way. I will certainly give my authority. We have continually supported, the Northerners, who are our allies, against the Cantonese, and we are doing it now. [Interruption.]

The CHAIRMAN: I think the interests of debate will be best served by allowing the hon. and gallant Member to make his speech without interruption.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: The very fact of our sending a force to Shanghai gives moral support to the Northerners. These people have been kidnapping strikers in the International Concession and beheading them without trial. They threatened to behead all men on strike in the Post Office, which is inside the International Settlement, and I am sorry to say that sections of the English Press apparently approve of it, and I have not heard one word of protest from the other side of the House; the only protests hove come from this side.
Do hon. Members really approve of the support that we, by holding the International Settlement at. Shanghai, are giving to these militarists and autocrats, because that is what they are? The fact of the matter is that the tendency of our policy, except during the last few years, the last two years I might say, when the Cantonese power began to grow—and I know the hon. Gentleman who spoke from the other side of the Committee will admit this at any rate lie ought to admit it for he knows the facts—the whole tendency of our policy, expressed through our representatives there, who through contact with the foreign residents it China are under their influence, has been to back up the anti-democratic forces in China from the time when the monarchy was overthrown. They never believed in the possibility of setting up Constitutional Government and a Republic in China. They have always supported any reactionary general any militarist, any autocrat or reformed brigand, or unreformed, as the ease may be. Chang-tso-Lin is the great example. They have always given him recognition when he has taken Peking. They have given support to him by occupying Shanghai, because that does not mean only the safeguarding of the lives of our people, it gives real, material support to the anti-Cantonese, anti-Nationalist forces in China. That has been going on for years, and we are now paying the penalty. That is the tragedy of the whole situation.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) gave some
figures about the textile trade. I have heard it said from the Treasury Bench that if every Chinaman wore his shirt an inch longer all the idle spindles in Lancashire would be set going. The future trade when China is awakened is enormous; but, on the long view, we are doing our very best to spoil one of our most valuable markets. In these days the Chinaman is an adept at the boycott. He used it successfully against the Japanese, and the Japanese receded from their position as oppressors and bullies. Now they are using the boycott against us, and they will continue to use it while the present policy of force is followed by the Government. I do not see how we on these benches can do other than protest against the continued policy of hostility towards and pin pricks against the Cantonese Government. After the fall of the Chinese Republic, after the dispersal of the Chinese Parliament, after the attempt to restore monarchy, the only Party left in China that was working for democratic government was the party of the Kuomintang, and it is that Party, which is in power in Canton and over most of the south, to which we have shown hostility right through.
In past years this country, whenever it has been Liberal in the broad sense of the word, has shown sympathy for peoples who have bean struggling for national freedom. We showed sympathy for the Poles struggling for freedom against Russia in the middle of last century. We show freedom for the Italians struggling for national liberty and freedom from Austrian domination. Englishmen have been proud that their country helped the Greeks in their struggle for national freedom from the Turks. When the Liberal spirit has been rife in England, we have held out the hand of help and friendship to all peoples struggling to free their country from foreign domination on the one hand or to establish, a Constitution on the other. The last great occasion was when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as Prime Minister, sent a message of welcome to the Russian people on the overthrow of the Duma. Since then that spirit has slept in England. During most of last century people struggling as the Chinese people are struggling to-day, when the great awakening has come in
China, could look to this country to give them help in moulding their new constitution, to show them sympathy and friendship. We have abdicated that position, and in China it has been taken by Russia. Again I would beg every hon. Member to try to look at this matter impartially. In China, we have deliberately gone out of our way to show favour and sympathy to the anti-democratic forces. The only Party worth calling a Party in China struggling for a Constitution and a Republic in China, and a Government responsible to an elected Parliament, is the party of the Kuomintang. The people who have helped them have been the Russians, and is it any wonder that Russia has a great influence in China? It is no excuse on our part to say, "Oh, these people are instigated to an anti-British attitude and anti-British acts by Russia." In the first place, if the Tsar had still been on his throne in St. Petersburg, the Kuomintang Party would nevertheless have been struggling to-day to free China from its medieval shackles and bring it into line with Japan and other modern States. If the Tsar had been in full power in Russia, this struggle would still have been going on.

Mr. ERSKINE: How do you know?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I am very glad the hon. Member for St. George's, Westminster (Mr. Erskine) put that question. The answer is easy to a plain question. The movement started at the beginning of this century, and there was a great expansion from 1911 onwards. Sun Yat Sen sent thousands of students abroad to imbibe Western ideas and education. They are now back in China, leading the Chinese. Our country ought to have sympathised with and helped them. We ought to have welcomed this reawakening in China. A reawakened China, democratically governed, with an elected Parliament sitting at whatever site is chosen for the capital, will be a great force for peace in the world; and if we can take the long view, and show these people that we can be friendly, we shall have cause to rejoice in the future. If the Labour party had been in power during these last three years, none of these troubles would have come on us. We need not have sent a single soldier.

The CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. Member is getting rather wide of the subject.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Japan has as great an interest as ourselves in China. May I ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Japanese are co-operating with us in Shanghai? We have sent 20,000 troops. Japan, with a large conscript army, is much closer to China. How many troops have the Japanese sent? I see that a few hundred bluejackets have been landed and have occupied certain Japanese mills. How many American soldiers have been landed—except for an ordinary route march? Are we to do the whole of this work? And is the very wealthy International Settlement at Shanghai providing any assistance in the way of money? I see a large item down here for the rent of buildings. Is the municipality of Shanghai contributing at all to the cost of these troops? Further, may I ask when the question of the relative sums to be borne by the British Government and the Indian Government will be settled? In March, 1921, a motion was passed in the Indian Legislative Assembly that troops should not be sent out of India without the assent of the Assembly. That motion was accepted by the military representative, hut it has not been observed, and troops have been sent out, apparently—in fact, it was suggested by the Noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for India—without the assent of the Indian Legislative Assembly. On this Vote I should not be in order in going into the Indian side of the question, but it looks very much as though we shall have to pay for those troops, and I would ask the Secretary of State for War to deal with that point a little more fully.
If we take the short view and support the War Office blindly in this matter we shall pile up nothing but trouble for the future. If we take, the long view, we shall say that the only policy to-day in China is to show that we wish to respect Chinese national rights and to negotiate with the leaders of the only party in China which can possibly put a decent Government in power in that country. If we recognise the Cantonese Government and deal with them on equal terms, I believe that we could with complete
safety withdraw every soldier from China and get a perfectly just arrangement with them, but we are reaping the benefit of a long series of insults and hostility to the democratic forces in China and of support for the anti-democratic forces. Unless that policy is reversed there would be nothing but trouble, and we shall be arguing about the cost of these troops in three years' time.

Commander FANSHAWE: I am not surprised at the speech to which we have just listened from the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy). I do not suppose anybody else who has spent three years in China could show so complete a misunderstanding of the whole situation. The hon. and gallant Member belongs, or did belong, to the sea service, yet he asks this Committee, in all seriousness, why we sent troops to Shanghai and the Japanese have not yet started to send them. As a sailor he knows, surely, that it takes six weeks for troops to get from this country to Shanghai, and only four or five days from Japan to Shanghai. His previous sea-training ought to have enabled him to answer that question himself, without the Committee having to listen to remarks, of that sort. He has told the Committee that our Government are backing certain Northern war lords in China, whereas they ought to have backed the Nationalist government of Canton. He has brought forward no proof that the Government are hacking the war lords of the north, though challenged to do so by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Sir R. Hall).
The Government have done the right thing they have backed none of the opposing forces it China. The Government took a lea ling part in conferring at Washington with the Chinese to try to find some new way of dealing with the situation and to help China to attain that greater degree of Western civilisation which we all would like to see. It is hopeless, it is foolish, it is wrong to blame the Government for inaction because they have so far regarded the movement taking place in China without taking sides. They have entered into negotiations with the Cantonese Government with regard to the territory over which they have gained control, and which they control at the present time.
No-one can say that Mr. O'Malley who negotiated the agreement with the Nationalist Minister has not shown the greatest zeal, ability and courage, and he is the instrument of our Government. Therefore, what fault have you to find with our dealings with the Cantonese Government in regard to these negotiations?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: My complaint is that, although Mr. O'Malley conducted negotiations for a settlement in regard to Hankow, no negotiations of this kind are going on with regard to Shanghai.

Commander FANSHAWE: Why should we negotiate with the Nationalist Government concerning territory over which they hold no control whatsoever? If and when the Nationalist Government hold sway over Shanghai, we have already been informed that our Consul-General will be ready to negotiate with the Nationalist Ministers there. Until that time arrives why should we negotiate with the Cantonese with regard to Shanghai? The hon. and gallant Gentleman asked what is the good of keeping and protecting our British Nationals in Shanghai if the whole of the trade has been cut off? We have attempted to keep the trade of the Upper Yangtse and the negotiations that have been conducted by Mr. O'Malley are for that purpose. But how do we know that the new arrangement in regard to Hankow is going to work satisfactorily? I see from the Press that at one place on the Yangtse there has been the rehoisting of our flag over the Consulate, and a reception has been given there by our people to the Chinese traders who have to live with them in the future. There is a friendly spirit coming already from those negotiations.
The right hon. Gentleman who spoke first from the Front Opposition Bench based his speech mainly on three points: our trade, negotiations with China, and the defence force. I want to refer mainly to the sending of the defence force to China. I was in China in 1900, and I took part in the Boxer Rebellion, and I was very much struck with something the Prime Minister said in this House on the 8th of February, to the effect that the police and the volunteer forces in Shanghai were quite capable of dealing
with the ordinary mob of Shanghai, and that the danger arose when the victorious or the defeated soldiers joined with the mob. The Prime Minister also said that anybody who had been in China at the time of the Boxer Rebellion could substantiate that statement. I served with an expedition which went to the rescue of our Legation in Peking and we progressed towards Peking very well until we met a mixed force of soldiers and Boxers. We were able to deal with the Boxers quite easily, but directly we met the soldiers and the Boxers together with our small force we had to turn back, because those opposing us tore up the railway lines and defeated us at Lo Fa and Lang Fang. We retreated and remained at Tsi-ku until we were relieved by a very powerful Russian force. Afterwards a strong force of about 30,000 Russians, 30,000 Japanese, one British Brigade and others had to go to the relief of the Legation in Peking simply because we had not at the time of the joining of the soldiers with the mob, in the first instance, a sufficient force for the relief of our people in Peking. Hon. Members will see the wisdom of sending out to Shanghai a, sufficiently strong defence force at this particular time.
I would like to ask the hon. Member who is going to speak for the Labour party to tell us why in 1924 the Prime Minister at that time, who was also Foreign Secretary, did not withdraw the British force that was then in the Concessions in Tientsin. Hon. Members will recollect that a considerable foreign force was established in the Settlement of Tientsin immediately after the Boxer outrages, and it has remained there up to this time. I believe that one battalion of British troops is there now. There are foreign troops there numbering about 2,400, and our maximum strength there has been one brigade. Therefore, I ask anybody who is going to speak from the-benches opposite why they have suddenly taken this dislike to our forces being in China to protect our nationals. There is another point which struck me the other day on this question of China. The hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) said that by sending a defence force where you have 9,000 British people you are going to endanger the lives of the other 6,000 British people up-country in different parts of China. Why does he say up-
country? Does he not realise that nearly all those people he refers to are at the seaports or in a part of the country which is not controlled by the Nationalist Government at all, such as Peking, Tientsin, Chefoo, Amoy, etc. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull knows the places in China, and he knows that the main portion of the British population is concentrated at the Treaty Ports and not up-country. Some people we are not able to reach by means of our ships, but I do not think it is an argument for sacrificing or risking the lives of the major portion of 15,000 people in China simply because you cannot protect a few hundred of our nationals who are living up-country in China and cannot be got at.
I wish most earnestly that those Members of the Opposition who are pursuing this policy to-day could have been with us on that expedition to Peking. I do not want to exaggerate, but I should like to tell the Committee that I saw the mutilated and twisted bodies which the Boxers had finished with, and if hon. Members opposite had seen them, they would not be quite so willing to risk the lives of our men, women and children in China. What have we got behind Shanghai? The Leader of the Opposition on the 12th of February asked us to visualise the Chinese soldiers coming to the boundaries of the National Concession in Shanghai, and he said it would be better for these people, out for loot and not amenable to discipline, to come rushing on to the national settlement. What is going to happen if there is nobody to show force to stop them and to save our men, women and children from murder and outrage of every sort? When the mob is let loose, how are you going to stop it? Is it a desirable thing that this opposition to our policy in China should have been taken up? The Labour party think this policy is doing them good, and they believe that they have won one by-election upon it. They believe that they have won that election because the people do not want our troops sent to China. I am sure, if hon. Members opposite can sink so low as to take up this attitude and look at this question on party lines, it will not be to their advantage in the long run, but to our advantage. The feeling in the country is rising against this attitude, and I
believe the Government have done absolutely right in the action they have taken. No noise has been made about their policy, but a sufficient force has been sent out to Shanghai. It is absurd to say that this force has not been sent for defence purposes, because no one would believe that a force of 20.000 men could conquer a country with a population of 400,000,000. This is not an expeditionary force, but it is the right sort of defence force for our people in Shanghai.
A remark was made the other day by the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), which I should like to mention now. The hon. Member would have the Committee believe that the shooting which took place at Shameen was started by our people. Only last night I met a British officer who was at Shameen at the time. Shameen is an island, and our armed defence force was there at that time. A procession of students passed. There was mixed with them a number of soldiers and shots were fired at our people. We retaliated, and one of the foreigners was killed, and I think one was wounded. Unfortunately, there were casualties on the Chinese side, but the shooting was not started by us, and I very much regret that the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley should have made such a statement in this House. Why mislead the people? What is the object of it?

Mr. LANSBURY: I notice the hon. Member quotes Shameen, but he has taken very good care not to quote Wanhsien.

Commander FANSHAWE: I do not happen to have any knowledge about the other incident to which the hon. Member refers, but if I had. I have no doubt I should be able to controvert him on that point as well. In conclusion, I wish to appeal to hon. Members opposite upon another line. I ask them to imagine themselves in Shanghai with their businesses and their homes and their wives and families there, and then ask themselves would they want the defence force to come and protect them. I say that hon. Members, in regard to their attitude on this question, have done wrong, and they know it. Do not let us have any division on this national subject, but let us agree upon it and turn the wrong into the right at last.

Sir GEOFFREY BUTLER: I think the House owes a great debt of gratitude to the last speaker, in that, at the beginning of his speech, he put the negotiations in the forefront of our thoughts. Far better than party recrimination, or even than claiming virtue for one's own party, is it to think of that small band of Englishmen out there, charged with one of the most difficult diplomatic negotiations that a servant of His Majesty can have to face. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) made his speech, I thought I detected signs, even though he did not say so, that he wished to have the questions under discussion to-day treated from the point of view of reason rather than of passion. He did raise one or two points which demand an answer, and on which I venture to address the Committee. For example, he followed the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in suggesting that it is impossible for a country to carry through negotiations while there is an armed force in the background.
If that be true, it is, of course, a very serious indictment, but is it the case? Does experience suggest that it is so Surely, no very great effort of memory is necessary to recall the force under General Harington, and the steps that we took in Iraq, to see that having that force upon the spot in no way impeded an ultimate satisfactory solution of our difficulties with the Turk. Again, I cannot help feeling that we could do no worse service to Sir Miles Lampson than to use loose and inaccurate language about the nature of these Treaties. I venture to think that tine remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Miles Platting are thoroughly borne out by a cool consideration of the way in which the China. Treaties grew up. Take, for example the word "extra-territoriality." Think of all the mud that has been thrown at it in the last three weeks. One might have thought that there had not been an international Commission' sitting re-neatly in China on the question of extraterritoriality, one of whose members was a distinguished Chinese. Can anybody, impartially and without passion, read the Report of that Commission—which can be obtained in the Vote Office—and think that it can he possible for our great interests, not only in Shanghai.
Amoy, Tientsin, but all the other towns out there, to be left utterly unprotected by some sort of extra-territoriality? Might I suggest to hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway that extra-territoriality, looked at in one way, is nothing but a system of collective bargaining between nations? When Mr. Jones bargains with a particular Chinese, they do so, not qua individuals, but as members of two nations that have made, a treaty. Nor, if it be not pedantic to remind the House of it, is it true in history that extraterritoriality was originally forced by a Western progressive and powerful nation upon an impotent, backward and decadent Oriental race.
If one were to search history, one would find that the first agreement about extra-territoriality was embodied in a treaty made by a French King with the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, in the year 1525, and it is interesting to note that it was made by that French King at the time when he was at the very lowest ebb of his fortunes, within 10 years of his losing the greatest fight of his life against his greatest rival; and it was made with the Turkish Power at a time when it dominated the Mediterranean, when Suleiman the Magnificent was regarded by his contemporaries as greater than any other potentate, and when the Turk regarded the European as far less progressive in civilisation than himself. It is a small point, but it is an historical point, a pedantic point, it may be; but sometimes, when one hears "extra-territoriality" abused, one is interested to think of its origin and of its original nature. If we have to have, as I challenge anyone to deny, come sort of extra-territoriality to protect our nationals in China, why cavil at the name?
Then there is another attitude, or approach, towards this subject, which, as it seems to me, is immensely hampering the free hand of our representatives in the Far East. One hears so much talk. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), in his calm, dispassionate speech, painted, as many others on his side of the House paint, this dispute as if it were a question for us of nice neutrality, a clear-cut issue to he decided by international lawyers, as it might have been, let us say, in the American
Civil War. But does that represent the facts? The difficulties of negotiating with a continual succession of War Lords, one rising in face of the other, reminds me of a phrase which the late President Roosevelt used to use in connection with Mexico, the negotiations with which he was finding it difficult to conduct? He said, "You cannot pin apple jelly to the wall."
If there were civil war in China, it would be, perhaps, like a dog fight. There would be a scuffle, a fight, and one side would win. The present kind of scuffle in China is like a cat fight, the result of which is frequently more cats. It is by care and accuracy in approaching this situation, quite as much as by the absence of passion, that we can best help those who are very much in our minds to-night. I am in this position, that a very considerable number of my constituents are out in the parts affected at the moment, and I have been very much struck, in the letters I have received from them, by the great sigh of relief that has gone up from everyone at the knowledge that the troops were on the way. There is not a word of bloodthirstiness, not a word of, I might almost say, complaint, of their treatment by the Chinese. On the whole, there has been breathing through those letters a strong realisation that they are in China, and have got to live on amicable terms with the Chinese if trade is to progress; but, at the same time, there has been a great sigh of relief at the fact that the troops are on the way, and that when they were sent from England they went with the good wishes and the high hopes of their countrymen; and in that sigh of relief l am pretty confident, before the Debate closes, this House will join to-night.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: We have heard to-night a number of taunts thrown out at the Labour party. We had the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Boss anal Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson). by various insinuations, charging—

Mr. MACPHERSON: No.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: The right hon. Gentleman says "No," but they were insinuations. He made a number of insinuations that people sitting on these benches treated this country and the Government of this country as
criminals are not treated in the dock. If that is not a taunt thrown out at this party, I do not know what is entitled to be called by that name. We had the hon. and gallant Member for Stirling (Commander Fanshawe) telling us that when women and children were in danger, we paid no attention, because they were not our own women and children, or because our own skins were not in danger. I say that that is an infamous accusation, and an accusation which, as a loyal member of this party. I repudiate and fling from me. Accusations that we are not concerned about the lives of our fellow-subjects, that we despise and condemn our own country unheard—those are taunts which are infamous, and we fling them from us with the contempt which they deserve.

Rear-Admiral BEAMISH: If it were not true, you would not make so much fuss about it.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: What are the facts? The facts are that hon. Members on the benches opposite, and hon. Members below the Gangway on this side, have between them control of nearly the whole Press of this country, and, by a perpetual misrepresentation of the facts, they thin they can deceive the people of this country. Fortunately, the people to-day are not so easily deceived. [Interruption.] They have found out that the infamous misrepresentations to which this party is continually subject are not the truth which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite would hope they would believe. But I have no intention, m spite or the jeers and the conduct of hon. Members opposite, of being led away from the subject to which I intend to address myself. The case which the Labour party make against the Government—not against the people of this country,' not against England, not against those English people who are in some outlying parts of the Empire or of the world—the case we make against the Government is that this act of sending troops is the culminating act of a series of acts of force, instead of the reasonableness which they ought to pursue.
6.0. p.m.
A remark was made by the hon. and gallant Member for Stirling with regard to Shameen. I think I was the first Member of the House to question the
Foreign Secretary with regard to the conditions in China, and to what object were my questions addressed? It was that, instead of making a reasonable case, the Foreign Secretary relied upon force to substantiate his claim. First came Shanghai, and all these troubles that we are in for now are largely the result of the original killing of a great number of Chinese in Shanghai, because there was some very slight disorder in the streets. Following upon that disorder and that shooting, in which, I think, fifteen Chinese lost their lives, an inquiry was held. It was not an inquiry that was prejudiced or biased against this country; it was an inquiry of ambassadors, in which, I think, this country was represented, and in which the other ambassadors of the Foreign Settlement were represented. They made a report condemning the action of the British Commissioner of Police. The case I made at the time was that the report ought to have been acted upon, but there was delay while nothing was done. Then we come to Shameen. I do not profess to know the facts of Shameen, but I know that the Foreign Secretary definitely refused to have an inquiry at which the facts could be impartially investigated. That was the request I made from the beginning, in order that it might be found whether it was true, as the British said, that the firing began from the other side or from ours. I wanted those facts investigated in order that the British case, instead of resting upon the strong right arm, might rest upon justice, because I believe this country has been built up upon justice, and so long as it adheres to the principle of justice it will prosper and gain on every side. But if it relies merely upon the strong arm that is a sure sign that we are not going on in the way we ought to go if we are going to succeed in the future.
The sending of this force has been avowedly done for two objects; in the first place, to protect life, and secondly, to protect property and interests in Shanghai and the neighbourhood. We have made the point—and in spite of everything that has been said I think it is a very sound point—that life would not have been in danger if aggressive policy was not pursued, and secondly that the risk of loss of life to our people
in China, in so far as there is risk at all, is very much increased by the sending of these troops. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Stirling painted this picture of the lives of British men, women and children as in danger from Chinese insult and abuse. It is very difficult, when a plea of that kind is made, not to appear hardhearted, but we have so often had this cry of women and children in danger when the most infamous proceedings were going forward that we are forced to look at it very carefully when this matter is raised. There has not been a sudden outburst of war and riot and all these things in China. It has been going on for a great number of years. Yet a question addressed to the Foreign Secretary elicited the fact that in the last three years in that vast country, as big as Europe, in all the riots, in all the disorders, in all the civil war that is proceeding, in spite of all the civilian Chinese who have suffered death at British hands, only three English civilians have lost their lives. That is not a reason why everything should not be done to protect the lives of those who are there, but it is proof that the Chinese are not the riotous, dangerous people that the hon. Member and some others have endeavoured to paint them.
I want to pass from that to the protection of interests, and it is on that that I want to contribute what I think is a new point to the Debate. I want to lay down a principle on which I think we on this side of the Committee differ from hon. Members opposite. Englishmen from all parts of the British Empire go out into other parts of the world to trade. That is in keeping with the maritime and adventurous nature of our people, and we on this side, just as much as hon. Members opposite, have every praise and every sympathy with what is done in that direction. So long as the rights of the workpeople are adequately preserved, we, equally with hon. Members opposite, are glad that profits and successful interests are built up by those who take that course. But if our countrymen go to distant parts of the world, where there are risks which there are not at home, because they find opportunities of making far larger profits than can be made here, and employ coolies in place of English labour because they can get them so very
much cheaper, where labour of all kinds is cheap, and there are no factory laws, they have got to bear the financial risks which are involved in it. There are often two alternative methods of proceeding on a certain course. One is a comparatively safe method which brings in a small profit, and one is a dangerous method, which may bring in a large profit, but to which there are certain risks attached. Those who take the second course have to bear the insurance. They take out an insurance policy to cover the risk. They pay the premium, and if the risk eventuates, the insurance company provides the assurance. We have seen how in this country that principle has been applied to labour. In an industry in which there are certain risks with his workpeople, we have arranged that the employer shall bear a share of those risks and shall be obliged to compensate his workpeople where any danger ultimately eventuates, and he in the same way insures with an insurance company, paying the premium, and getting the accident money or whatever it may be.
Hon. Members opposite, not in defence of the people of this country, not in defence of trading enterprise in this country, but in the interests of people who go elsewhere, attempt to apply to English industries out of this country more favourable conditions than they apply to industries that are built up in this country. They say to our traders, in other parts of the world, "You go to distant parts of the world and make large profits which you get there because of the risk, and when it comes to paying the risk we will undergo the expense because we will send the necessary force to protect your property." I would lay down this general principle; that, so far as the protection of interests is concerned, it is not the business of this country to spend the money of our people to protect the interests of our traders in other parts of the world under all circumstances and without full investigation of the facts. Therefore I do not think this Defence Force should have gone in the way it has done. In the first place, it is the culmination of a policy of force which was ill-advised from the beginning. In the second place, it is not going to have the effect, when a large geographical view or a
large view in time is taken, of protecting the lives of the men, women and children of our race. I do not think it is right that the money of our people should be spent indefinitely in protecting interests where enormous profits have been made just because the conditions involve some risk. Finally, in the interests of the trade of Britain in China, the less we deal with force and the more we deal with reason the better it will be for the people of this country.

Captain EDEN: In the early part of the hon. Member's speech, he inveighed with rather more warmth than we usually associate with him against what he complained was misrepresentation by hon. Members on this side and he assured us that his concern for those in Shanghai was every whit as great as ours. Of course, if he tells us that, I accept it without any reservation whatever. But I do not think he can complain of misrepresentation when members of his own party, with some authority, in speaking of these self-same Englishmen in the Far East complain, in the first place, that they are not manual workers, and, secondly, that they are "a medley of adventurers." That is the description which Mr. George Hicks gave of those now working in the Far East and he gave that description in the presence of the Leader of the Opposition. In view of statements such as that, the hon. Member cannot complain of misrepresentation.

Mr. LAWRENCE: The misrepresentation was that we were not solicitous for the care of their lives. The fact that you may not like certain people or may disagree with them of call them names does not mean that you are not solicitous for the preservation of life.

Captain EDEN: Perhaps, I had better read the whole quotation.
The Britishers whom the Government are so anxious to protect in China are not bricklayers, carpenters, engineers, or manual workers of any kind. They are for the most part capitalists and merchants and their agents engaged in shady commercial transactions, and the exploitation of unfortunate Chinese workers and defenceless Chinese women and children. In short, they are a medley of adventurers.
I leave it to the Committee. If that is the way the hon. Member expresses his affection for our fellow countrymen I should be very much
happier with his enmity. I do not accept from him or from Mr. Hicks or any other Member of the House any definition of class distinction nor do I accept any definition which would deprive any citizen of the British Empire of the full rights of his citizenship. Citizenship has nothing to do with either class, creed or sect. These Englishmen in the Far East are not at Shanghai for amusement, or for their health. They are there, as well we know, to attempt to foster British trade, and to expand British markets, and we know further that upon the success or failure of their efforts depends the employment of tens of thousands of people here at home. I put it to the Committee, are they workers who are working for the best interests of England in voluntary exile at some peril of their lives? Who are the real workers, those who are working for their country abroad, or those who are denouncing it at home?
Earlier in the Debate the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) criticised the Government's policy. He complained, in the first place, that it had been difficult to understand and that there had been some delay in its pronouncement. If I understand aright the speeches that have been made by the Leader of the Opposition, he himself has paid the warmest tribute both to the Christmas Memorandum and the more recent declaration of 22nd January, and to the Foreign Secretary's later declaration. I should like to know from the party opposite whether or not they still endorse those declarations of policy, and if they do, of what it is that they now complain in their connection. He explained to us that the intention of his party is entering into competition in foreign politics, was entirely friendly and that they only meant to help. I have no doubt that they did mean to help and I have also no doubt that they did not help. Any interference, any attempt by any outside body to carry on foreign policy at the same time as our own Foreign Office must inevitably make the task of the latter many times more difficult. If the Leader of the Opposition has any doubt as to the effect of that interference he need not ask us; he need not ask any prejudiced persons. All he need do is
to ask the individual to whom the communication was addressed. If he will refer to Mr. Chen's reply he will see exactly how Mr. Chen interpreted the efforts made by the right hon. Gentleman. I am afraid that whatever the motive of the interference might be, it proved once more that the only way by which an Opposition can assist the Government of the day in carrying out its foreign policy in a time of difficulty is to give it its loyal support within and without this House.
There are one or two other criticisms with which I should like to deal. The right hon. Member for Miles Platting complained that we were trying to negotiate and at the same time we were what he described as "showing fight." I think that is hardly a fair description. It is perfectly possible to negotiate and yet at the same time to take elementary precautions for the protection of your own citizens. He complained, and so did the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), that the troops already in China were quite sufficient without sending any more from here. Well, I suppose hon. Members opposite have their sources of information, but so have those on the spot, who are our representatives, and to whose judgment the Leader of the Opposition has paid many an eloquent tribute. If, in view of the fact that our advice from our representatives on the spot was that this number of troops should be sent, would the Government have been justified in not sending sufficient troops to carry out that advice? I agree with the right hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas), who has said that if troops are to be sent surely the Government were right in seeing that they were sent in sufficient numbers to discharge their duty.
If I may sum up in a few sentences what I believe to be the real issue, from which he has somewhat drifted this afternoon, I would say that throughout these difficulties our Government have tried, and rightly tried, to maintain neutrality as between the warring factions in China. I believe that they have maintained that neutrality, and it is certainly our desire that they should do so. But the complaint comes to us that we have not done that; that we have favoured one side against the other. All
throughout the compaign and throughout the anarchy which has resulted, while these warring generals have been at each other's throats, or, rather, prodding each other with a rather leisurely bayonet, we have maintained neutrality, and we are in no sense responsible for the anarchy which has been bred by these contending armies. When the advice of our representatives on the spot is that the lives of British men and British women were not secured unless troops were sent, the answer of hon. Members opposite is: "You should not have sent them. You should have flouted that advice, and in place of the troops you should have put up a barrage of words." Would that have been the attitude of the party opposite had they been in the position of His Majesty's Government? I am sure it would not have been their attitude if they had been sitting in Shanghai.
The argument that Shanghai is not the only settlement in China is beside the point. It is obviously impossible for British troops to protect every Englishman or Englishwoman in the remote parts of China, but those troops were sent on the advice of those best able to judge, and for the quite obvious reason that, if Shanghai, the international settlement, be defended, it provides a place of refuge to which these people can go and to which, as we well know, they are going at the present time. We are told: "If you send troops you are endangering the lives of the people out there." I do not know how that paradox will appeal to those who are now in Shanghai. I can only suggest to hon. Members opposite who have told us that by sending troops we are actually endangering lives, that it would have been far more frank and less disingenuous if they had turned to our people out there and had said, "We do not think you ought to be protected. We do not think we ought to send troops to protect you. Look after yourselves and fend for yourselves." That would have been frank, it would have been more courageous.
It is so easy to see how the present Socialist policy has come about; last January, before the House met, we had speeches from one or other of the right hon. Gentlemen on the front bench opposite in support of the Government's
foreign policy, from the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Derby and the right hon. Member for Colne Valley. (Mr. Snowden), and then, as usual, the tail began to wag the dog. [Interruption.] You are making the wrong sort of noise! Since then, we have had demonstrations. We have had the "Hands off China!" demonstrations, and every other kind of demonstration in an attempt to try to get up public feeling against the sending of these troops to China. Then right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite found themselves in a quandary. They said: "How are we going to reconcile betraying these British people and leaving them without defence with our professed support of the Government's foreign policy?" Then some ingenious quibbler came along and whispered to them: "Vote against the Supplementary Estimate. Vote against the money. Vote against the troops being sent, and then say that you have done it because the sending of the troops would make the position of those they were sent to defend more difficult!" I am sorry for hon. Members and right hon. Members opposite in that they have to defend so disingenuous a line of reasoning. It would have been far more honest if they had had the courage to say that they were not prepared to carry out the elementary duties of a Government to defend our citizens wherever and whenever they are in peril.
By to-day's action and the vote which I hope they may yet not give they will inscribe on the Socialist's party's banner some new slogans which I have no doubt they will find useful without these walls. I suppose we shall see inscribed on their banners in letters of gold such cries as, "Socialism is defeatism," "Support Socialism and betray Englishmen," "Endorse Socialism and leave English women to their fate." It may be we shall now see these cries inscribed on their banners. But I still hope that certain hon. Members on the benches opposite, with one or two others, who are not in their hearts in sympathy with this policy of defeatism and cannot accept it as a true interpretation of any national party, may yet assure us that Socialism will change its course back to that channel in which it originally flowed, back to that course which is surely the truer course, and that they will support the
Government in those steps which it can and must take to protect the lives and to ensure the future security of our own fellow citizens.

Mr. THURTLE: I apologise for intervening in the Debate at this point, because I have not listened for any great length of time, but since I have been listening I have heard such provocative statements from the other side that felt impelled to rise in order to give some kind of answer. The hon. and gallant Member for Warwick and Leamington (Captain Eden) said that while people were away abroad in China working for their country there were people here at home who were denouncing their country. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I presume he meant, and I presume those cheers mean, that the people referred to were Members of the Labour party. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Let me tell the hon. and gallant Member and hon. Members opposite who cheer, that he and they are utterly mistaken if they think that any single member of the Labour party ever has denounced or ever intends to denounce this country. We make a very sharp distinction between the country and the Government of the day. We do not by any means regard the country and the Government as being synonymous terms. We do not think the present Government speak the views of the people of this country. If we were to search for proof of that we could refer to the by-election which took place at Stourbridge recently. If the Labour party were the defeatists which hon. Members opposite try to represent them, if they really were the friends of every other country but their own, do hon. Members imagine that a majority of the electors of Stourbridge would record their votes in favour of the representative of the Labour party. [HON. MEMBERS: "They did not!"] At any rate, there was a majority for the representative of the Labour party. He received far more votes than the representative of any other party. If hon. Members opposite are going to say that our patriotism, our loyalty is at fault they must be logical and say that the loyalty and patriotism of the electors of Stourbridge is at fault.
The gravamen of our charge against the Government in connection with the Shanghai Defence Force is that it shows the failure of diplomacy; it shows that
the diplomats have failed and have fallen back upon the soldiers. I was reading, two or three weeks ago, a speech made by the General Officer Commanding in the Aldershot Division. He was addressing some troops who were going to China, and he told them that the issues of peace or war were in their hands; that it rested with them whether there was to be peace or war in China. Here is a very high placed General making that sort of statement. It is the strongest condemnation we could have of the present Government that they have allowed matters in China to drift to such a position that it is no longer the word of the diplomat that is to decide the issue, but it is the discretion of the simple soldier. In other words, they have abdicated their position and given over the issue to the soldiers. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] That was said by a distinguished General, and we have been told on numerous occasions that it rested with the good conduct, discretion and self-restraint of the soldiers in Shanghai whether there was going to be an outbreak of force or not. In that fact we have a condemnation of the whole diplomacy of the present Government.
Let me deal with the charge which has been levelled against the Labour party, that we are indifferent to the lives of British subjects and that we do not care whether British subjects lose their lives in Shanghai or not. I do not wonder at the indignation displayed by my hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) in repudiating that accusation. I do not wonder at the unwonted heat he displayed. It is a most outrageous and indefensible accusation levelled against any member of the Labour party. If there be one humanitarian party in this House, if there be one party more concerned than another in the preservation of human life, it is the Labour party. So far as Shanghai is concerned, the reason why we criticise the sending of the defence force is not because we are indifferent to the preservation of British lives, but because we are much more anxious than hon. Members opposite that no British lives should be lost. We take a more comprehensive view of the situation. We are concerned with the lives of the 8,000 British people who are in Shanghai at the present time. We are also concerned with the lives of
thousands of other British subjects scattered all over China who cannot possibly be protected by the Shanghai Defence Force. More than that, we are not only concerned with these two sets of British subjects, we are concerned with a third set. We are concerned with the British boys in the British Army and Navy, and we do not want to see the life of a single one of these boys sacrificed if it can possibly be helped. That is why I say that we are the most humanitarian party—

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND - TROYTE: Did not the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Purcell) say that we must prevent our Army in China being successful?

Mr. THURTLE: I cannot say what the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean said because I did not hear his speech. I am putting my own point of view. We are as much concerned as anybody with the preservation of British lives, and that is why we take up this attitude with regard to the Shanghai Defence Force. The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir G. Butler) said that a great sigh of relief went up from certain people when they heard that troops were being sent to Shanghai. That may be true, but the hon. Member must look at the picture all round, and if a sigh of relief went up from some people it is certainly true that when these troops and battalions were embarking a sigh of anxiety went up in many British working-class homes. The hon. Member must remember that the people who are going out to protect. British people in Shanghai are not great patriots like the right hon. Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond), like the hon. and gallant Member who spoke from the other side—

Sir R. HALL: I have a son out there at the present time.

Mr. THURTLE: If the hon. and gallant Member will permit me to say so, I do not exactly accept the principle that a father has a right to make a vicarious sacrifice of his son. That is largely a matter for the son himself. I was making the point that the great mass of these soldier and sailor boys are drawn from poor working-class homes, and that the great majority have joined the Army
and Navy because they have been driven to do so by economic necessity. The Financial Secretary to the War Office will not deny it, because in answer to a question last year he told me that at least 70 per cent. of the recruits for the Army were unemployed.

Captain KING: May I remind the hon. Member that in the Memorandum published by the Secretary of State the other day it is shown that when unemployment was at its worst owing to the strike recruiting went down and that when employment is better recruiting is better.

Mr. THURTLE: I cannot believe that the hon. and gallant Member's Department would ever give an inaccurate answer, and they certainly told me last year that the percentage of recruits who were unemployed was 70. I leave it at that. We on these benches, because we represent in the main the working classes of the country—[Interruption]—do feel that we have a special function in looking after the people not only in Shanghai but those boys who are in the Navy and Army, and that is why we are most careful to see that this country is not involved in any unnecessary war. We say that the sending of this Shanghai Defence Force was unnecessary. I will go further and meet the point raised by the hon. Member opposite as to whether we are prepared to leave these people in Shanghai to their fate. The Labour party is prepared to put up an alternative proposal. If the situation were to develop—we deny that it has developed—to the point where the lives of British people in Shanghai were in serious jeopardy, then we say that the proper policy is not to send a provocative military force hot to bring away the people who are in danger. [Interruption.] HON. Members opposite laugh and scoff at that. I wonder if they have forgotten 1914 to 1918. Have they forgotten what an object lesson that was in the utter futility of war. Do they not think it would be worth our while to put a little bit of pride in our pockets and adopt what hon. Members opposite are pleased to call the policy of scuttle, take away the troops from Shanghai rather than involve this country in a war with a nation which consists of 450,000,000 people?
Are they prepared to face the consequences of what is going to happen if that war takes place? There will be tremendous slaughter on the Chinese side, and there is bound to be a great deal of slaughter on our side. Eventually you will have to make peace with China, and after that you will have your fresh war graveyards, your fresh war debt, and in addition to it all a tremendous hatred in the hearts of the Chinese people. Confronted with that alternative, would it; not be much better and wiser to take away the British people who are in Shanghai and avoid the possibility of war. It is because we believe that this Defence Force was never necessary, that the sending of it is much more likely to bring about war, that we quite sincerely, honestly and patriotically are determined to use all our influence in order to get the force withdrawn from Shanghai at the earliest possible moment, and by this Amendment we are going to record our protest against ft ever having been sent there.

Major KINDERSLEY: The hon. Member who has just spoken has said that he is very solicitous for the lives of our men in the Army. I have here a quotation from a colleague of the hon. Member, the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Purcell), which I should like to read. It is as follows:
Should war eventuate with China, we ought to do everything possible to prevent our Army in China being successful. It is not a nice thing to say. It would mean, I am sorry to say, that our own men would have to suffer, butt if we enter into war we must consider the proper side of it, and, in my opinion, the proper side in this instance is the Chinese workers. We must stand by them.
When the party opposite have made up their minds as to the policy they intend to follow in this matter, it will be more profitable to listen to them. In his speech this afternoon, the right hon. Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) quoted from an article which appeared to-day in the "Manchester Guardian," and he pointed out that owing to what he called our policy of force, our piece goods trade had shown a great decline since 1913. It is perfectly true that there has been a sensational drop in our piece-goods trade, but that drop is due to the corn petition of Japan, whose trade has increased from 6,215,312 pieces in 1913 to
15,560,617 pieces in 1925. The right hon. Gentleman did not quote some words of the article, and I think I must read them in order to correct him. The article says:
Is it possible, in conclusion, to draw any deductions from the position of German and Russian trade, which is distinct from other foreign trade in that it is not associated with 'rights' in the sense that ours is? This can be said, that their loss has not affected either German or Russian figures.
The right hon. Gentleman omitted to read a little further on, where it entirely destroys his argument. This is what it says:
It has, however, to be remembered that not all German trade is done by Germans, while most of the trade that is done by them is done in the Treaty ports, where it enjoys the security which extraterritorialised traders enjoy. It is not possible, therefore, to draw the conclusion which the figures suggest—namely, that extraterritorial rights are of no economic consequence.
That destroys entirely the argument put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. He made a speech to-day which was practically an attempt at an apologia for the vote given by the Labour party during the Debate on the Address on the subject of China and for the vote they propose to give this afternoon. I am extremely sorry for the right hon. Gentleman and the Leader of the Opposition. In this matter they are not masters in their own house. I propose to prove my case. Let me quote from a paper called the "Communist," published this month, March. Speaking of the Debate on the Address in this House, they use these words:
The Debate in the House revealed not only a hopeless confusion amongst the leaders of the Labour party, but the gulf that exists between the leaders and the workers in the country. While MacDonald, Clynes and Thomas were palavering as statesmen and diplomats, 'Hands off China' committees were spring up everywhere. This definite' working class pressure, which the Communist party helped to foster, undoubtedly decided the terms of the Labour Amendment, forced MacDonald to soft pedal, on the patriotic dope, and encouraged the back-benchers' to call for the withdrawal of the troops.
I believe that to be profoundly true, and I will produce further evidence to prove my case. [Interruption]. I know hon. Member opposite do not like this very much. I have here a report of a Congress which was held in Brussels in February
last. It is called "An International Congress against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism." I have here a list of the participants, and I find that the President of Honour—I suppose that s the Honorary President—is the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), who is associated with Professor Einstein and Madame Sun Yat Sen. The executive committee consists of representatives of the following countries: China, India, Mexico, America, the Philippines, Egypt, South Africa, the French Colonies, the Netherland Indies and Great Britain. The representatives on the executive of Great Britain are the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Mr. Maxton), Mr. Bertrand Russell, Miss Helen Crawfurd, and the hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Saklatvala). There are also representatives of Germany, France, the United States, Holland and Belgium. I find that the following delegations or persons are represented at the Congress. There are various organisation from the United States, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia and China. Let me state what organisations in China are represented. There are the National Government, the Kuoming Tang Workers' Federation of Canton, the Strike Committee of Canton and Hong Kong, the Syndicat Provincial of Kwantung, the National Army, the Army of General Feng, Chambers of Commerce—I do not know what that means—the Federation of Students of Kwantung, the Association of the Press of Pekin, and a host of other Chinese organisations.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: On a point of Order. Has this particular Conference in Amsterdam, or wherever it was held, anything to do with the sending of troops to China?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have heard a lot of Chinese names.

Major KINDERSLEY: Hon. Members opposite need not worry. The following organisations from this country were represented: the Independent Labour party, the Miners' Federation represented by Mr. Cook, Mr. Bridgeman representing the League against Colonial Oppression, the hon. Member for East
Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson), the London Trade Union Council, the Chinese Information Bureau, Colonel L'Estrange Malone, the "Daily Herald," the "Manchester Guardian," the Oriental News Service, and so on. This Conference met and sat for several days, and resolutions were passed on the subject of China. The general tone of the Conference is this: It is an organisation which exists apparently to stir up the natives races against existing forms of government, and I can imagine no more shameful or diabolical work than that which is apparently undertaken by this organisation. I wish to ask how Members of this House reconcile their membership of such an organisation with the oath that they take at the Table of this House. Amongst the resolutions that were passed there was one which I ask hon. Members to note carefully, because its terms are interesting and may throw some light upon the Amendment to the Address which was proposed by the party opposite, and upon the vote which Members opposite are to give to-night. I quote the resolution from the "International Press Correspondence," which is the official paper of the Third International of Moscow, and the date of it is 17th February, 1927. [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh, but they may remember that on 6th July, 1924, I made a speech in this House on the subject of Communism and the organisation of the Third International. They laughed then, but at the following General Election they disappeared. [HON. MEMBERS: "Your speech did it!"] I do not say that it was my speech, but the facts were in my speech. The following resolution was unanimously adopted by the International Congress against Colonial Oppression held in Brussels.
The undersigned members of the English, Indian and Chinese delegations declare that the tasks of the working class in the Imperialist countries must be the following:

(1) To fight side by side with all national movements for the complete liberation of the suppressed countries in order, everywhere where the national forces demand it, to achieve complete independence;
(2) to oppose all forms of suppression of Colonial peoples;
(3) to vote against all military, naval and air force credits which are intended to be used to maintain the military power in order to employ it against the suppressed nations;
1125
(4) to make clear to the whole population and the soldiers the horrors of imperialism;
(5) to stigmatise Imperialist policy in order, in accordance with the teaching of the class struggle, to be able to carry out the emancipation of the workers.
As regards the present situation in China we declare the following:

(1) We demand the immediate withdrawal of the land and sea forces from Chinese territory and from Chinese waters;
(2) we insist on the necessity of a direct action, including the strike and the organising of prevention of transport of arms, munitions and troops, both to China and to India, as well as from India to China;
(3) we demand that all credits connected with preparation for war or war itself be refused;
(4) in the event of military intervention and a war, all weapons lying within the reach of Labour organisations must be employed in order to prevent and hold up hostilities;
(5) we demand the unconditional a recognition of the National Government and the annulment of all unequal treaties and ex-territorial privileges, as well as the handing back of the foreign concessions;
(6) we pledge ourselves in the interests of the political and trade union labour movements in England, India and China, to work for the realisation of unity and of common action."
That is signed by "Brockway, Davies, Bridgeman, Pollitt, MacManus, Wilkinson, Beckett, Liau Han Sin, Jawahar Lal Nehru." The programme laid down by them was directly inspired by Communist influence, and it is the very programme demanded by speaker after speaker from the benches opposite. I maintain that that policy is inspired from Moscow. [Interruption.] The marionettes of Moscow in China first of all tried to create bloodshed there. They egged on the Chinese crowd to attack our people. Then they pulled the strings and the marionettes of Moscow here cried out, Hands off China. [Interruption.] It is all very well for hon. Members opposite to say that I have this subject on the brain. Can anything more deplorable be conceived than that hon. Gentlemen opposite should lend themselves to a conspiracy of that kind? I do not say that they all do it wittingly. Some of them are unwitting tools, and I wish I could say all of them were.
Before I sit down I want to say this the Government. They know as well as I do the facts about this matter. They
know the appalling danger, to our Eastern Empire especially, of this propaganda. They know the source of it. I am convinced that if they will tell what they-know to the people of this country there will be no danger. I ask them to put the cards on the table. If I may say so with respect, it would do far more to help their case and to show the justice of our cause than Members of the Cabinet making violent speeches throughout the country against the Moscow Government —speeches which are not followed by any action. Let the Government tell this country the facts. Let the country know where it is, and the country will always support the Government. That is the course I recommend to the Government. If they do that they need have no fear of this "Hands off China" agitation. That agitation is making no headway in the country, for the country has long ago spotted the place whence it is inspired. If the Government will only put before the country the information that they possess, I am certain that the agitation will die within a week.

7.0 p.m.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I think we must congratulate the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken on saving this Debate from dullness. The Committee should congratulate itself also on having had this admirable opportunity of listening to the Die-hard spirit, coupled with a prophecy of victory at the next, Election. I can understand now how it was that the "Clear out the Reds" people won the last Election. It must have been inspiring to have heard from platform after platform such speeches as that to which we have just listened, pointing out all that might come to us. At the same time, I fancy that this Committee is more concerned with what is going on in Shanghai than it is with vaticinations about the end of the British Empire. What is going on in Shanghai now is a considerable expense to the people of this country. I must begin by being a heretic. I do not really think that our people in Shanghai are in any very great danger. So long as the Fleet is there, full of Marines and in considerable force, the danger to the people of Shanghai does not seem to me to be excessive. Then, again, all this excessive deference to the man on the spot seems to me to be overdoing it.
The man on the spot will always get everything he can provided he has not to pay for it. Once on a time I was a man on the spot. I wanted some troops in South Africa. I do not think the risks were very great, but I know the troops would spend a lot of money in the town and bring prosperity. Of course, when you have 25,000 British troops in Shanghai, they bring a considerable amount of local prosperity to the place.
The man on the spot, believe me, cannot be absolutely impartial in these matters so long as he does not have to pay. We are paying. We know it is only costing £1,000,000 to send the troops there and to keep them there for a, month, but for how many months are we going to keep them there? It is easy for the Secretary of State for War to send troops out there, and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, remembering what trouble he got into for not sending enough troops to Iraq, determined to send enough to Shanghai. He sent so many that there is not quite room for them, and they have bubbled up outside the Settlement as well as inside. All that is quite simple, but the difficult problem is how to get them away again. No Chinaman in his senses, whether he belong to the North or to the shockingly Bolshevik-inspired South, is going to run into the Settlement of Shanghai against our men. They have got quite enough to do fighting each other without fighting us, but the British troops will continue to stay in Shanghai. The civil war in China has gone on now for 15 years, ever since 1912. It is quite likely, if something is not done to stop it, to go on for another 15 years. Are we to stay in Shanghai all that time? When will the moment come when we can consider Shanghai safe enough under the eyes of the Fleet and get the Army back here?
We began in exactly the same way with Egypt. We sent our troops to occupy Egypt to protect British women and children — and British bond-holders, I think it was—from the revolutionary Arabi Pasha. We said we were going to come out in a few weeks, but we have stopped there ever since, and that is 45 years ago. As far as I can see, this
Government and many Governments to come, will be faced with the awful problem of finding sufficient excuse for getting the troops away from Shanghai and at the same time saving the prestige of the British Empire. As a matter of fact, the prestige of the British Empire depends principally on not being afraid, and the sooner the present Government finds some adequate excuse to end the Shanghai business and bring our people back the better it will be for all concerned and the better it will be ultimately for our trade in China. That trade does not depend on the defence of the Shanghai settlement. If we are going to have a siege of Shanghai and a boycott, our trade will suffer and our people in China will suffer too. That will be the way to bring them back to this country.
We are now faced with a situation which it is unnecessary to lament or argue about. Our troops are at Shanghai. The position is not really dangerous so far as war is concerned, but the position is dangerous so far as our future relations with the Chinese people are concerned. How soon are negotiations going to be entered into between the British Government and the Nationalist Government of Canton? It is obvious that the Nationalist Government, by propaganda and one thing and another, will ultimately get North of the Peking road, and probably to Peking itself. How soon are we going to start negotiations with that Government with a view to ending this era of hostility between England and the new China? We have got to come to terms some time, and the sooner the better. As far as I could make out at Question Time, the only person we have got at Shanghai who is empowered in any way to negotiate with the Chinese, or the Cantonese if you like, is our Consul-General. I do not think the Consul-General is the sort of person who is likely to negotiate—as we would like to see negotiated—peace proposals. Sir Miles Lampson knows China thoroughly and has shown that he can carry on negotiations with people who are not considered to be strictly gentlemen, like these Bolshevists, and bring those negotiations to a successful conclusion, and I should have thought he ought to be in Shanghai empowered to open these proceedings as soon as possible, Every week's delay adds to the
cost and the risk. Every week's delay piles up more and more hatred between the Chinese people and ourselves. It is time it came to an end, and the best satisfaction the Government could give to all Members on these benches would be to open up negotiations. We would not quarrel with them about what has been done if, now that the troops are there and the position is as it is, they would try to do their best to bring it to an end.
I would like to congratulate the Government on one thing. So far they have been strictly and accurately impartial in China. This is a great achievement when you remember that all the men on the spot are insensible on the subject, and have for years sided against the Kuomintang of the South. In spite of—I will not call it a prejudice—the natural feeling of the English trader in Shanghai and elsewhere, in favour of the old Chinese regime, and against these newfangled ideas of Canton, the troops and the Administration here have been able to steer an impartial and neutral course. But that neutral course may be upset at any moment, and I would urge Ministers to take the earliest possible opportunity to enter into pacific negotiations and not to allow this business to keep on. Let us get a settlement, recognising the Southern Government as the Government of China. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because they are the least militarist and more democratic, and because they are inspired by higher ideals than all the leaders and Tuchuns and tyrants of the other provinces of China. We hope they will be successful; I do, and the sooner we enter into negotiations with them the sooner we shall get peace and an end to this drain on our resources which is bearing on the taxpayer of this country and piling up an adverse balance which in a few weeks' time the Chancellor of the Exchequer has got to meet.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: I only want to intervene for a very few moments. I think the Committee will certainly agree with one remark from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just sat down, whatever else they may disagree with in his speech, and that is the desirability of getting our troops home from Shanghai as soon as possible. But most of us will disagree with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman as to the reasons which have
caused the troops to go to Shanghai and as to the conditions which will bring about their return. I should like to make it perfectly clear that unlike the right hon. Gentleman I do not think the bringing away of these troops immediately is in the hands of the British Government. It is in the hands of the Chinese people themselves. There is not the smallest doubt—and it was made perfectly clear at the beginning of the negotiations—that these troops are there for nothing else but the protection of British interests and the moment that those interests are safe and that special protection is no longer required, they will be removed.
It is quite likely that Members of the Committee may be in some doubt as to the origin of the settlements in China and particularly in Shanghai. I would like to remind them that the position of the British residents in Shanghai, as the British part of the International Concession, goes back a very long time. It is based on treaties which are just as binding upon the Chinese as they have been on us, and it is the breaking of those treaties, and that alone, which has made the action of the Government necessary. I have in my hands the original Treaty of 1858 with the Emperor of China, and with the permission of the Committee I would like just to refer in a few words to one or two of the Articles in it. Article 8 of this Treaty clearly lays down:
The Christian religion, as professed by Protestants or Roman Catholics, inculcates the practice of virtue, and teaches man to do as he would be done by. Persons teaching or professing it, therefore, shall alike be entitled to the protection of the Chinese authorities, nor shall any such, peaceably pursuing their calling, and not offending against the law, be persecuted or interfered with.
Can any hon. Member say that that Article of the Treaty is being carried out to-day by the Chinese people, or by any Government in China whether the North or the South? There are other Articles. One Article says that British subjects desiring to open houses, warehouses, churches, or hospitals will have every possible protection from the Chinese people—I am not quoting the words in full—and they are permitted to carry on trade with whomsoever they please, and so on. It is quite evident that in Clauses such as those—and there are many of them—which bind the Chinese people to afford full facilities for British trade and
settlement we have rights and privileges which it is our duty to protect. When we remember also that the International Settlement in Shanghai has a community of something under 40,000 foreigners, with something like 800,000 Chinese in it, we must surely realise that there are dangers in Shanghai which might occur not only from the actual armies of the North or the South but from hordes of Chinese coming into the Settlement, not originally at any rate in any hostile spirit but perhaps on the contrary to take refuge from the dangers without. There are great dangers, very great dangers, to the small handful of British there, and nothing but the action of the Government could possibly have prevented those dangers becoming extremely acute. I cannot understand the attitude, therefore, that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman takes up when he says that there was never any danger to our people in Shanghai.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I said with our Fleet there.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: A great part of that Fleet has only recently gone there, and has not been there all the time. There is one other mistake which hon. Members opposite are making in dealing with this question. They are inclined to think of the Chinese people, in bulk, as being similar in psychology to the people of Western nations. I can assure them they are dealing with a very different people. They are a people for whom most of us who have had anything to do with them have in some respects a great admiration. Their commercial honesty and personal integrity stands very high indeed in the East. At the same time they are not a Western people, they are not a people who think on all matters necessarily as we do. They are uneducated and extremely backward in many ways and a people who might form mobs possibly easily inflamed against us. If the Committee remembers what the conditions are—a small body of about 40,000 foreigners altogether, of whom less than 10,000 are British, in a settlement such as Shanghai surrounded by hordes of Chinese in a state of civil war, they cannot but agree that the action which the Government has taken is the very least that was necessary to protect our position in the East.

Mr. DALTON: In the course of this Debate it has appeared from some of the speeches made on the opposite side of the House that the attitude adopted by my hon. Friends on these benches has not been completely understood. I hope, therefore, to have an opportunity of stating it once more and I hope my account may be regarded as no less authoritative than that of the "Daily Mail" on the one hand, or the "Communist Review" on the other, these being the two chief sources of information on which some hon. Members opposite rely. In this, as in previous Debates, our position is perfectly clear. We opposed the sending of these troops; we called for their diversion and recall, and to-night, consequent upon, and consistent with that attitude, we oppose the voting of credits in respect of the sending of these troops. I hope to give reasons before I conclude why we do so. Something has been said about the cost. It will cost nearly £1,000,000 to take the troops out and to keep them there until March. That is all we are asked for to-night—950,000. It will cost another round million I believe to bring them hack and a number of further millions while they are there. It is true we are left in doubt as to how far an attempt will be made to shuffle part of the cost on to the Indian taxpayer. But since that is not vet made clear, we need not discuss it at this stage beyond remarking that it introduces a certain element of uncertainty into these Estimates.
A great deal has been said on the broader aspects of the matter. I shall come to these again in a moment, but it is worth while now to remark that this Supplementary Estimate alone cancels out the whole of the projected saving in the Army Estimates this year. It is also worth while remarking that these Estimates, and others which are bound to follow, will further swell the hopeless deficit with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is faced. The Secretary of State for War is the latest to heave a brick at the unfortunate head of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have remarked that this charge is thrown upon the taxpayers of this country in the first instance. We hear speeches sometimes in this House from shareholders who are interested in China. I do not complain of that. All interests are heard here. But we do not find among these troops
any shareholders' battalion on their way to the East; neither do we find as part of the financial arrangements in connection with this expedition, any special contribution from those whose interests are to be specially protected by these soldiers. Following upon the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) I shall take this occasion to observe that some of these British investors in disturbed and distant lands, for whom the Union Jack is not good enough, who are not willing to invest their capital in Australia, for example, where there are trade unions and Factory Acts, but who must needs go further afield towards the East, are an expensive luxury to the British taxpayer.
With my hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester I hope that although, up to now, we have been bound by what I believe is an evil tradition which has often led to trouble and even to war, we shall be able to break away from it in the future and that those who chose to invest their capital, or, indeed, their brains outside the bounds of the British Empire shall do so knowing that they are doing it at their own risk and that they shall not be entitled to embroil their country and the young soldiers of their country's Army in defence of their private interests. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I say I hope in future that doctrine will be adopted. It has not been adopted up to now, I know. But I hope it will be adopted in the future, and I hope that hon. Members opposite who now show these emotions of indignation will see that this doctrine would, after all, mean a considerable encouragement to investment inside the British Empire. It would mean the recognition of the fact that those who invested their capital and their brains under the Union Jack and in the British Empire could count upon more support end less conditional support than those who chose to go outside the Empire. That is an aspect of the matter which might very profitably be pursued upon another occasion.
We believe that the sending of these troops increases the danger of war. If fighting should begin in Shanghai, where will it end? We find now that British troops are outside the limits of the international concession —[Interruption].
That has been admitted and hon. Members opposite who dissent must have absented themselves from Questions when the Foreign Secretary has been replying to queries from these benches. There is, no dispute about it. British troops are already outside the boundaries of the international concession and, consequently, in occupation of Chinese soil with no treaty right to support their presence there. We submit—and I summarise this briefly because it has been well expressed in a number of speeches from this side to-day—that the sending of these troops increases the danger of war and increases the danger to the lives of British subjects outside Shanghai. With regard to British subjects in Shanghai, my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) has said with great force that there was no need to supplement the warships and the volunteer forces in Shanghai by this enormous mass of armed force. They would have been strong enough for all reasonable eventualities and if not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle) has said, it would have been possible to evacuate British subjects in Shanghai if their lives should seem to be in danger. In case hon. Members opposite should think that such a policy as evacuation would be damaging to what is sometimes called our "prestige" I should like to draw attention to an answer given in this House as recently as 2nd March by the Foreign Secretary to my hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) with regard to the dispatch of a British ship to Nicaragua where, on a smaller scale, the same dangers were thought to exist. The Foreign Secretary said that on 17th February Mr. Patteson, British representative in Nicaragua
telegraphed that conditions were very menacing and that the 'United States Minister could give no guarantee for the safety of British life and property in three of the principal towns. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government judged it their duty to order His Majesty's ship "Colombo" to proceed at Once, to Corinto, to serve as a base of refuge for. British refugees if need arose."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd March, 1927; col. 354, Vol. 203.]
Is that "scuttle"? Is that undignified? Is that damaging to British prestige? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] Then put down a Vote of Censure upon the
Foreign Secretary and have the courage of your convictions. The position is exactly parallel except in regard to the scale of the danger which is said to be apprehended. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Perhaps hon. and gallant Members opposite will allow me to go on, so as to leave time for the reply of the Secretary of State for War. I am anxious not to eat into his time. Perhaps I may be permitted particularly as an ex-service man to express an honest opinion. We are not always given the benefit of expressing honest opinions in the judgment of hon. Members opposite, but allow me to make the honest statement that one of the reasons why I most object to the policy of this Government in respect of the sending of this force 's because they are imperilling, and I hold unjustifiably imperilling, the lives of British troops.
Reference was made earlier by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) to the activities of the camera- men. I saw in the illustrated papers pictures of the departure of these forces and pictures of the British soldiers, many of them young lads, kissing their wives and sweethearts good-bye as they set out. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I notice the older some hon. Members are the greater the interest they take in what are, to them, salacious details. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] My point, however, is this: When I saw these photographs I was reminded of 1914 and the years of the War when the same thing happened, and I say honestly that I pray that all these soldiers may come back safe and sound to their wives and sweethearts. It is just because danger has been brought into their lives, needlessly, as I believe, and for no good or sufficient cause, that I am going to east my vote to-night against the grant of this money. It is said that these troops have gone out to protect British lives. I have good grounds for believing that what is being done will not protect British lives, hut will increase the danger, and that in so far as British life is actually in danger, the Government of hon. Members opposite, in the case of Nicaragua, have shown how that danger may be met. I have a suspicion that this large force would not have been sent out if there had not been enormous
British interests of a more material kind in Shanghai. The "man on the spot" has sometimes been quoted, and I propose to quote from another man on the spot, in the person of the embittered scribe who is "Times" correspondent at Shanghai. Writing on the 4th March from Shanghai regarding the Hankow agreement, which, as the Committee will remember, was negotiated between our representative there, Mr. O'Malley, and Mr. Chen, this correspendent writes:
Now that the full text"—
that is of the Hankow agreement
is available, it is betterly remembered in Shanghai that the House of Commons loudly cheered the announcement of the signature of the document, whereas for the British concerned the conclusion of the agreement involves very heavy individual losses and the inevitable decay of a fine thing created by British enterprise and a deplorable derogation of British prestige.
He goes on to give various figures about the market value of municipal bonds and other shares. It is quite evident that many people on the spot are much more concerned to get the troops out there to defend their property than they are concerned about anything else. Even the Hankow agreement, which was regarded, on this side, when it was signed, as being a very fair and reasonable apportionment of conflicting claims and a very fair introduction to the new régime is resented out there by the men on the spot as going too far in satisfaction of the Chinese demands, which the Foreign Secretary himself has admitted are fundamentally reasonable. Prestige is quoted here and referred to elsewhere in connection with this controversy. Prestige is a word which is most prominent on the lips of people who are not quite sure of their own position. It is a term that always disgusts me when it is used in this connection, because it is generally used as an emotional cloak, a false sentimental cloak, for objects and purposes that cannot be defended without such artificial aid.
I was speaking only yesterday to a young Englishman recently returned from China—[An HON. MEMBER: "Name!"] Why should I give you his name? I have said he was a young Englishman, and that should be enough for you. He told me that our prestige in China—I will give you this particular about him, so that you may know about which part he speaks; he comes from Hankow—had
been continually lowered by the events of the past few years, using prestige in the proper sense. The Chinese think less well of us now than they did several years ago, as a result of the incidents to which reference has been made at Shanghai, Wanhsien, and elsewhere. He went on to say that our prestige would be finally destroyed in China if there were any further outburst of fighting in connection with the arrival of these troops at Shanghai, and he said that the one thing which had done something to raise our prestige from the deplorably low level to which our policy had plunged it was the gallant restraint of the Marines at Hankow under very difficult circumstances, when they did not fire, in spite of being placed under very grave temptation to do so. He said another thing, which impressed me very much, and which I believe to he exceedingly true. He said we had allowed the Russians in the last few years to steal our prestige. [interruption.] The hon. Gentleman who interrupts cannot contain himself when Rusisa is mentioned. It is like pressing a button to use the word "Russia"; we get an automatic response from the hon. Member.
In the opinion of a man on the spot, a Britisher recently returned from the spot—and that, by all the rules, is a very high authority—we have allowed the Russians to steal our prestige with the only live force in China at the moment, namely, the Cantonese Governments, simply by the very obvious tactics of showing sympathy with the Cantonese in their struggle. It would have been just as easy for us to do the same, but we were too short-sighted, hidebound and self-interested to do so, and the result has been that the Russians, not on their own merits, not by any virtues which they may possess, but simply through performing that little act of commonsense tactics—shall I call it?—which we failed to do, have succeeded in getting a practical monopoly of the sympathy of the Cantonese. They have had the sense to back the right horse, and to back it in time.
With regard to the policy which is embodied in this Estimate, it represents the policy of a divided Cabinet. We applaud and approve the diplomatic side of the Foreign Secretary's work, although we think it comes too late. We hold the view that if no change of Government
had occurred in 1924, these troubles would have been settled long ago by negotiation. None the less, it is better late than never, and we are glad to see that the Foreign Secretary's diplomatic policy has been so far successful in the Hankow, Kiukiang, and other agreements. What we are sorry to see is that the die-hard policy which has fought against that policy of conciliation has imposed this Supplementary Estimate upon the Foreign Secretary's policy. You have two policies which do not mix, one of peaceful negotiation and one of armed force, and the latter will ruin, unless we are very fortunate, the hopes of the former. If fighting should break out in Shanghai, all the good work so far achieved by the more conciliatory policy adopted by the Foreign Minister will be completely undone. The Hankow Agreement, the Kiukiang Agreement, and the rest will not be worth the paper they are written upon if there is an outburst of inflamed feeling as a result of any shooting at Shanghai.
Therefore, if I may summarise our case, we object to this Estimate and shall vote against it, because we believe that it represents a false line of policy and because the Government's warlike measures have endangered peace, have endangered British life, have endangered, in their repercussions, British trade, have endangered a peaceful settlement of the matters in dispute between the two countries, and have endangered the future of friendly relations between the British and the Chinese peoples. But we hope that, in spite of our fears, these troops may not only be brought back to this country, but be brought back soon, and safe, and sound without British lives having been lost, without one shot having been fired. This is our hope, and we hope that in spite of the handicap imposed on the policy of peaceful negotiations by the bellicose die-hards, none the less the sun may break through the clouds which at present threaten the peace of the Far East, and in spite of all provocations from no matter what quarter, that peace may remain unbroken to the end.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Before I deal with the complaints of the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes), let me acknowledge with gratitude the approval of our industrial policy in China that he has expressed. He has
quite truly said that those who are in business there, especially the mill-owners, are doing their best to improve the industrial conditions, and that, compared with Chinese and other foreign mills, they are leading in the improvement of those standards. It is well that that should be noted, for the followers of the right hon. Gentleman on the platform elsewhere, and even in this House, are not of the same opinion. One of them, who is very well known, has only quite recently said—and in the presence of the Leader of the Opposition, who did not seem to think it necessary to correct him—that the exploitation of the unfortunate Chinese workers and defenceless Chinese women and little children was the object of sending a Defence Force to Shanghai. That was a statement made at the Albert Hall by Mr. George Hicks, the chairman, when the Leader of the Opposition was present, and it contrasts curiously with the statement of the right hon. Member for Platting.
Now let me deal with his complaints. He said that there were two choices, that there should be—and this he recommended to the Government—a public offer of fair treatment to China, or that provocative and unnecessary measures of a military nature should be taken. The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Dalton), who has just sat down, promised to make quite clear what the policy of the Opposition was, and he explained that by saying that the policy pursued by the Government was that of a divided Cabinet. Apparently, the Foreign Office was pursuing the first policy, and the alternative was being pursued by the War Office, or some Die-hards to whom he referred. Let me remind the Committee that the first part of that policy is precisely what the Government have followed. We have made a public offer to negotiate, and we have stated publicly, in the Memorandum issued in January last, the terms upon which we were prepared to negotiate. The difficulty has not been in making up our minds as to the terms of the offer, but the difficulty has been—and the right hon. Member for Platting avoided that difficulty, because he referred to China as China—to get someone on the other side who can negotiate in the name of China and for the Chinese people. We have been negotiating, notwithstanding
that there is no one to speak for the whole of China, because we have been pursuing an absolutely neutral course—contrary to the course which is advocated from those benches, or recognising one Government only in China—and not taking sides in the civil war which is being waged in China.
Let me deal now with the other alternative of which the Opposition have complained, that we have made provocative and unnecessary military preparations. In order to base that charge, the Opposition have to say that there is no danger in China. The right hon. Gentleman said there was no danger in Shanghai, and the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) and the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) have both asked the Committee to believe that there was no danger in Shanghai.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: No danger that was not met by the Fleet.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The Fleet at that time had a landing party of about 600, and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, who ought to know better, is prepared to thrust upon a landing party of about 600 a duty which, we are advised by our military advisers on the spot, can only be accomplished by a division! The British Navy will answer almost any test, but it would be murder to send so small a force to attempt a duty of that sort. The right hon. Member for Platting said there was no danger in Shanghai, but his Leader—at least, I suppose he still is his Leader—said this. Let me quote from "Forward" of 15th January:
Nothing could justify our authorities if they simply walked away from the settlements which past Chinese Governments have allowed us to control. We must have an agreement, and during its negotiation ordinary precautions for safety must be taken.
Stress is apparently laid on the word "ordinary," but who is to say what are the precautions that ought to be taken? Surely again it is the men on the spot, with military knowledge, and we are advised, and have been advised, that the precautions we have taken are adequate, but not excessive. Is there any worse thing that could be done than to send an insufficient force to attempt to protect our people in Shanghai? Let me continue to
read the statement of the Leader of the Opposition in "Forward":
The Canton Government is responsible for the crowd that packed itself on the barriers of the British Concession at Hanhow, and if there is any bloodshed in consequence, failing aggression on the part of our Marines, which no one on this side seems to have alleged, so far as I have seen, the authority that failed to control the crowd is to blame. The position is the more difficult as the influences behind the Chinese movement are not by any means all in the open. We read a great deal about Russian hands. They are there undoubtedly, but are strong only in so far as we are bearing past mistakes.
The Leader of the Opposition had no doubt on the 15th January that all ordinary precautions ought to be taken to protect our nationals in Shanghai, while we were negotiating an agreement, while we had laid down the terms upon which we would negotiate, and it was not until after this, on the 21st January, that steps began to be taken for the despatch of a Defence Force for Shanghai. Writing again in the "Socialist Review,' the Leader of the Opposition pointed out the dangers there were in China, and I think he at least at that time was convinced that steps ought to be taken to give adequate protection in Shanghai. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes) claimed that Lord Birkenhead had said in a public speech that it was a vile thing—I hope he will correct me if I am wrong. I took the words down, and I hope I am correct—that it was a vile thing for the Labour party to negotiate with Chinese representatives or with Mr. Chen. That was the complaint—that Lord Birkenhead thought it was a vile thing for the Labour party to negotiate with Mr. Chen. What was it he really did say? First of all, I must read a statement which the right hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) made, because it was in reference to that statement that Lord Birkenhead was speaking. It was stated that the right hon. Member for Shettleston said:
They should not allow themselves to be stampeded by all the talk about lives of British residents in China being in danger. There were only a few thousand British in China altogether, two-thirds of whom lived in Shanghai. Very few of them were members of the working classes or had any difficulty in getting about the world.
What Lord Birkenhead said was:
I regard as vile a man who asks Englishmen or Englishwomen to what class they
belong. I hold the man vile whether he draws a distinction in favour of wealth or of the working classes, It was our pride and boast in the days before Mr. Wheatley and men like him, that all those were English who stood for England, and that no English life should be imperilled without the resources of the Empire being invoiced for their assistance.
There is a certain difference between saying that the Labour party are vile if they negotiate with Mr. Chen, and denouncing the statement as vile that because they were not working-class they, apparently, had not to be protected. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, in order to make the Labour party's condition quite clear on this, said very much the same thing. He produced, and the Hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) produced in the course of the Debate, this amazing theory, that the business abroad was more speculative than the business at home, that anybody who carried on business abroad must be prepared to do so at his own risk, and that the British Empire was to wipe its hands of its nationals who were abroad, because they were carrying on speculative business.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I was very careful to say that that did not refer to their lives, but merely to their property.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: It is very difficult to know whether their property is more in danger than their lives. Generally it is the life first, and the property after. But I do not think the hon. Member who spoke last drew that distinction. He very clearly said he did not see that there were any shareholders in the battalions that were going out, and he drew a distinction between the property class and those who have not property. That is precisely what Lord Birkenhead charaacterises—and I characterise—as a vile argument.

Mr. DALTON: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is the last person to wish to distort or misrepresent what was said, What I said was that I noticed in the Force that was going out to the Far East there were no shareholders' battalions, and that there was no special contribution to be obtained from the shareholders whose property was to be defended. I said, at another point, that it was high time we introduced the doctrine that if people
thought the British Empire was not a good enough place to live in and trade in, and went outside, they should carry their own risks, and not ask the British taxpayer and the British Tommy to carry them for them.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Let us pursue that for a moment. What do our nationals go about the world for, It is true they go there to make money. But what else do they do? There are thousands and thousands of people in this country whose employment depends upon the China trade, and unless our nationals were prepared to go about the world and take the risks, employment in this country would be more and more reduced. The right hon. Member for Platting quite properly called attention to the importance of the China trade. Why is it important, and how was it got? By people going out and taking the risks. Are you going to encourage them to do that in future if you say to them, "If you get into trouble with any foreign country, if you are oppressed there, if your rights are flouted, then the British Empire casts you out; it washes its hands of you, because you are doing a specially risky business out of which you make great profits if you are successful. But you must be prepared to pay the losses with your lives, and do not ask the British Empire to protect you." I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman interrupted. I am glad he made clear the policy of the Labour party.
The other complaint was with regard to the troops that have gone out—that there was a too-full employment of the camera and the Press, and that it was a military demonstration. [An HON. MEMBER: "A boost."] As some hon. Member opposite says, "a boost." Let me tell the Committee what has actually happened. There were two communiques only sent to the Press from the War Office. One was sent on the 22nd January, and that was in order to explain that when the "A" Reserve was called out it was not a general mobilisation, and that the rest of the Reserves were not asked to report. The second communication was sent on the 24th January, and it gave the list of the various battalions which constituted the Brigade going out, and nothing else. If hon. Members will remember those dates, they will know that from all parts
of the country information had been coming into the Press that this and that unit was under orders to move, and the Press was naturally round at the War Office, wanting to know whether this was true, and what was up. Obviously, it was absolutely necessary that official information should be given in order that misunderstanding should not arise. As for the camera, what have the Government to do with the Press camera? How can we stop it? There is no Press censorship. We are not at war, and, consequently, the Press naturally exercises its rights to photograph the troops leaving this country.
There is nothing whatever provocative about the sending of these troops to China. There is no attack upon them, and I hope there will not be, there being sufficient forces at Shanghai not to invite attack. If there is no attack upon them, then they will most certainly not be used. The other complaint was that we ought to evacuate the British in Shanghai. I think anyone who considers it for a moment will see that it is quite impossible to evacuate so large a population as there is at Shanghai. The hon. Member who spoke last said that evacuation might take place in Nicaragua. But there are only 200 British residents in Nicaragua. It is not a question of prestige; it is a question of whether or not it is possible—and it is not possible—to evacuate from Shanghai. Many speakers on the other side have said that the sending of troops to Shanghai might protect those who were in Shanghai, but would cause greater risk of life to others elsewhere in China. That is surely a thing which, if it were true, would already have proved itself. It bas not done so, and for this reason. In November last the British nationals who were up country in China were advised to go to the ports, and to seek safety there. A great many of them have come down from their up-country stations, and are now in Shanghai. As far as the Government are concerned, they are satisfied that the course which they have taken, the double course of willingness to negotiate—open negotiation—and the protection of our nationals in Shanghai, is the right course. We repeat that we are willing to negotiate on the terms that have been made public whenever a Chinese Government is willing and able to continue those negotiations with us.
Meanwhile, we are intending to give protection to our nationals in Shanghai, and, surely, the events of the last weeks have shown that what we have done is right, and that the numbers of troops

who are there are not in any degree excessive.

Question put.

The Committee divided: Ayes, 303; Noes, 124.

Division No. 35.]
AYES.
[8.0 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Colonel C. K.


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Crookshank, Cpt. H.(Lindsey, Galnsbro)
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M (Hackney, N)


Ainsworth, Major Charles
Curzon, Captain Viscount
Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whlteh'n)


Albery, Irving James
Dalziel, Sir Davison
Hums, Sir G. H.


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Davidson, J.(Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C, M. S.
Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Huntingfield, Lord


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Ht. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Hurd, Percy A.


Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.
Davies, Dr. Vernon
Hurst, Gerald B.


Astor, Maj, Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Dawson, Sir Philip
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)


Astor, Viscountess
Duckworth, John
Iliffe, Sir Edward M.


Atholl, Duchess of
Eden, Captain Anthony
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)
Jacob, A. E.


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Elliot, Major Walter E.
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Ellis, R. G.
Jephcott, A. R.


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
England, Colonel A.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)


Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s. M.)
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Everard, W, Lindsay
Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-
Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Kindersley, Major Guy M.


Berry, Sir George
Falle, Sir Bertram G.
King, Captain Henry Douglas


Bethel, A.
Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement


Betterton, Henry B.
Fenby, T. D.
Knox, Sir Alfred


Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)
Fermoy, Lord
Lamb, J. Q.


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Fielden, E. B.
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip


Boothby, R. J. G.
Finburgh, S.
Little, Dr. E. Graham


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Livingstone, A. M.


Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart
Foster, Sir Harry S.
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Frece, Sir Walter de
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th)


Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Ganzonl, Sir John
Looker, Herbert William


Brass, Captain W,
Gates, Percy
Lougher, L.


Briant, Frank
George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman


Briggs, J. Harold
Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Lynn, Sir R. J.


Brittain, Sir Harry
Goff Sir Park
Mac Andrew, Major Charles Glen


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Gower, Sir Robert
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
McLean, Major A.


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Grant, Sir J. A.
Macmillan, Captain H.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Greene, W. P. Crawford
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H.(Wth's'w,E)
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.


Bullock, Captain M.
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)
MacRobert, Alexander M.


Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Malone, Major P. B.


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Grotrian, H. Brent
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn


Butler, Sir Geoffrey
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E. (Bristol, N.)
Margesson, Captain D.


Butt, Sir Alfred
Guest, Haden (Southwark, N.)
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.


Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Gunston, Captain D. W,
Meller, R. J.


Calne, Gordon Hall
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Merriman, F. B.


Carver, Major W. H.
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
Meyer, Sir Frank


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney s Shetland)
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Hanbury, C.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R.(Prtsmth.S.)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Harland, A.
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)


Chapman, Sir S.
Harmsworth, Hon, E. C. (Kent)
Moore, Sir Newton J.


Charterls, Brigadier-General J
Harrison, G. J. C.
Morris, R. H.


Christie, J. A.
Hartington, Marquess of
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Hawke, John Anthony
Murchison, Sir Kenneth


Clarry, Reginald George
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Nail, Colonel Sir Joseph


Clayton, G. C.
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Nelson, Sir Frank


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter]


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Nicholson, O. (Westminster)


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G.(Ptrsl'ld.)


Cope, Major William
Herbert, S. (York, M.R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert


Couper, J. B,
Hills, Major John Walter
Nuttall, Ellis


Courtauld, Major J. S.
Hilton, Cecil
Oakley, T.


Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebont)
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh


Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N.)
Holland, Sir Arthur
Penny, Frederick George


Craig, Ernest (Chester, Crewe)
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Perkins, Colonel E. K.


Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A.D.Mcl. (Renfrew, W.)
Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)


Philipson, Mabel
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)


Pilcher, G.
Shepperson, E. W.
Watts, Dr. T.


Pownall, Sir Assheton
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
Wells, S. R.


Price, Major C. W. M.
Skelton, A. N.
White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple


Radford, E. A.
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon
Wiggins, William Martin


Raine, W.
Smith, R.W.(Aberd'n & Kinc'dlne, C.)
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


Ramsden, E.
Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Rawson, Sir Cooper
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Reid, D. D. (County Down)
Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Remer, J. R.
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.
Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)


Remnant, Sir James
Stanley, Col. Hon. G.F. (Will'sden, E.)
Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R-, Richm'd)


Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Rice, Sir Frederick
Storry-Deans, R.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Richardson. Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.
Wise, Sir Fredric


Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)
Streatfelld, Captain S. R.
Withers, John James


Roberts, Sir Samuel (Hereford)
Styles, Captain H. Walter
Wolmer, Viscount


Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Womersley, W. J.


Ropner, Major L.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater)


Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Wood, E.(Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)


Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Tasker, R. Inigo.
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)


Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Thorn, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)
Wood, Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Salmon, Major I.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Sandeman, A. Stewart
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Wragg, Herbert


Sanders, Sir Robert A.
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Young, Rt. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)


Sanderson, Sir Frank
Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough



Savery, S. S.
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Scott, Rt. Hon. Sir Leslie
Waddington, R.
Commander B. Eyres Monsell and




Colonel Gibbs.


NOES.


Adamson, W. M. (Stall., Cannock)
Hardie, George D.
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Ammon, Charles George
Hayday, Arthur
Sitch, Charles H.


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Baker, Walter
Hirst, G. H.
Smith, H. B. Lees. (Keighley)


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Barnes, A.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Snell, Harry


Barr, J.
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Batey, Joseph
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Stamford, T. W.


Bondfield, Margaret
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Stephen, Campbell


Broad, F. A.
Kelly, W. T.
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Bromfield, William
Kennedy, T.
Sullivan, J.


Bromley, J.
Kenworthy, Lt-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Sutton, J. E.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Lansbury, George
Taylor, R. A.


Buchanan, G.
Lawrence, Susan
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Cape, Thomas
Lawson, John James
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Charleton, H. C.
Lee, F.
Thurtle, Ernest


Clowes, S.
Lindley, F. W.
Tinker, John Joseph


Cluse, W. S.
Lowth, T.
Townend, A. E.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Lunn, William
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.


Compton, Joseph
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)
Viant, S. P.


Connolly, M.
Mackinder, W.
Wallhead, Richard C.


Cove, W. G.
MacLaren, Andrew
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen


Dalton, Hugh
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow. Govan)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
MacNeill-Weir, L.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
March, S.
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Day, Colonel Harry
Maxton, James
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Joslah


Dennison, H.
Montague, Frederick
Wellock Wilfred


Duncan, C.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Welsh, J. C.


Dunnico, H.
Naylor, T. E.
Westwood, J.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Oliver, George Harold
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Gardner, J. P.
Paling, W.
Whiteley, W.


Gibbins, Joseph
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Gillett, George M.
Potts, John S,
Williams. T. (York, Don Valley)


Gosling, Harry
Purcell, A. A.
Wilson, r. J. (Jarrow)


Graham. D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Richardson, R, (Houghton-le-Spring)
Wright, W.


Greenall, T.
Rlley, Ben
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Grenlell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Ritson, J.



Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks.W.R., Elland)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Groves, T.
Scrymgeour, C.
Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. Hayes.


Grundy, T. W.
Scurr, John



Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

Resolution to be reported To-morrow;

Committee to sit again To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — UNEMPLOYMENT.

Mr. GREENALL: I beg to move
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider schemes of work of national benefit designed to provide employment for unemployed persons and to report upon such schemes, together with an estimate of the financial assistance required from moneys provided by Parliament; that the Committee do report to this House at intervals not exceeding one month during the sittings of this House; that the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
I think the house will agree when I say that unemployment is the most important question in this country at the present time. The first point with which this Motion deals is the necessity for finding work for the unemployed, and we would like that to apply, not only to the unemployed poor, but also to the unemployed rich, not only to those at the bottom of the ladder, but to those at the top of the ladder. Satan still finds something for idle hands to do, and we are of opinion that work is as good for the rich as for the poor. For the last few years the number of unemployed persons on the live registers receiving unemployment pay, and those not on the live registers and requiring Poor Law relief, must have averaged at least 1,500,000. If we include the dependants of those persons it must bring the number of these directly affected by this lack of employment to between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000. This is a costly affair, involving the country in enormous expense as well as creating misery and degradation. Leaving aside the out-of-work donation scheme, we have in unemployment insurance benefits alone paid out the enormous stun of £275,000,000. To this must be added considerable expenditure on Poor Law relief, which would bring the total to approximately something like £400,000,000.
What has the nation got in return for this enormous expenditure? The nation has got nothing. And this expenditure does not complete the cost of unemployment to the nation. The nation is suffering from a lack of skill and efficiency due both to unemployment and to the fact that a large number of young people have been deprived of the opportunity of training and experience which they would have obtained under ordinary conditions. Every year in this country some 600,000 children leave school at the age of 14.
When the choice before those children lay between school and employment—the latter often of an undesirable and unskilled character—the situation was bad enough, but to-day it is far worse. For the large proportion of those 600,000 boys and girls the choice now lies not between school and employment, but between school and the demoralising, idle life of the streets. During the last four years nearly 2,500,000 young people between 14 and 18 years of age have been east upon the industrial market, and hundreds of thousands of them have never done a single day's useful work. This imposed idleness undermines character, injures morale, and destroys the natural desire for work.
What has this Government done to assist in finding them employment? Eighteen years ago Employment Exchanges were opened and the machinery set up to assist in finding work for the unemployed. For a number of years they were fairly successful, and many persons were helped to get back to work by the Exchanges. For some considerable time now, however, the machinery of the Employment Exchanges has been used, in accordance with instructions given by this Government through the Minister of Labour, to deprive genuinely unemployed persons of the unemployment pay to which they are entitled and for which they and their fellow-workers have paid contributions. It is said that the unemployed persons are not genuinely seeking work. They are forcing these destitute people to seek assistance from the guardians, thereby increasing the rates. Let us for a moment consider the attitude of the Government with regard to the recent mining crisis. It is a fact that the Government in the face of their own Commission's Report, which stated that an eight hours' working day would throw out of employment 130,000 miners, on the mere asking of the coalowners, without consulting any other authorities in the matter, brought forward an Eight Hours Bill, and by their large majority forced that Bill through the Houses of Parliament, thus placing an Eight Hours Act on the Statute Book. By so doing they threw upon the Unemployment Fund at least 200,000 miners who became out of work, compelling them to go on the dole, and they brought about such a state of things in the mining industry that never has been
known before in the history of that in-industry.
As a result of the Eight Hours Bill passing there are at the present time upwards of 600,000 mine workers working three days and less per week, who are compelled to do this to qualify for unemployment pay or else make application for Poor Law relief, because in their destitute condition they are unable to provide food for their wives and families. I ask the representative of the Government who is now sitting on the Front Bench to tell us what the Government are going to do for these people whom they have placed in this position. Here are hundreds and thousands of men who are able and willing to work in the most dangerous calling in the country, who are prepared to risk life and limb to earn a livelihood for their wives and children and yet they have been prevented by the action of the present Government. This Government, I am sorry to be compelled to say, has brought ruin and disaster for the mining industry through the action they have taken in connection with the strike. What are the Government prepared to do for them? Is their answer going to be in the Division to-night that by their vote they will show that they are not prepared to assist the miners in connection with this trouble? If that is so, in our opinion the time will come when the country will realise the real position brought about by this particular Act of Parliament, and will also realise that as a result of the action of the Government not only the mining industry, but every industry in the country will suffer as a result of their action. Many people are talking about peace in industry, but there can be no peace in the mining industry so long as this state of things exists. The Eight Hours Bill for miners was passed in the interests of the employing classes of this country. It is party and class legislation, and cannot and will not be in the interests of the country as a whole. The proposal before the House is one for lifting the unemployment problem out of the rut of party politics.
The Labour party's Bill for the Prevention of Unemployment has been opposed by the Conservative party because it emanated from the Labour party. They have never considered the Bill on its merits because of their political prejudice
against it. The present suggestion is the appointment of a Select Committee from all parties to consider any practical schemes of work for the national benefit, and party considerations need have no more place in that Committee than they have in the Committee stage of a non-contentious Bill. I give the House credit for agreeing with the view that everything possible ought to be done to provide useful work for the unemployed. There fore the question is non-contentious, because on the Select Committee political considerations would give way to a common desire to sit and improve proposed schemes. We bring this motion forward not in the interests of party, not in the interests of class, but in the interests of the whole nation.

Mr. DENNISON: I beg to second the Motion.
I suggest that there has been no question since the days of Mr. James Keir Hardie which has occupied the time of the House of Commons more than the question of the unemployed, a question which he certainly made peculiarly his own. To-night we ask for a Committee to be appointed not to consider the question of giving some relief to the unemployed, but rather to suggest that a Committee should be appointed of an impartial character, representing all interests in the House, to consider schemes designed to provide employment for unemployed persons, with power to send for persons, papers and records. It is not a question of giving unemployment benefit; the object of this Motion is to find work for these people which after all is the only thing any decent man wants in order to earn an honest living. When we are considering a most important problem like this, we find that the Conservative party is represented on the benches opposite by no more than a baker's dozen out of something like 400 Members. If that is an indication of their interest in the unemployed, I hope they will get their deserts at the next election.
Parliament has got to examine the problem of unemployment. If the appointment of Committees and the tabulation of statistics could have clone anything to solve this problem it would have been solved long ago, but I am going to suggest that the country looks for more than the mere publication of figures and paying out benefit to help to solve this
great problem. Anybody can solve nearly any question by paying out other people's money, and in that respect the Conservative party have excelled, but they have done little or nothing to find useful work for the genuinely unemployed. Only last week this very problem was raised in two definite phases, and on two nights the House of Commons was occupied in discussing several aspects of it. One of the questions discussed, in which a good deal of interest was taken, was that of necessitous areas. I think that every Member of the House, to whatever party he may be attached, will agree that the whole problem of the distress in necessitous areas arises out of unemployment, and anything that can be arrived at as the result of careful and impartial examination by a committee such as we suggest would be a help in removing the tremendous difficulties, and also the sacrifices and burdens, of these areas. I am sorry to see that I am the only one of the 12 Members representing Birmingham who is here to-night on the occasion of this Debate. I hope, however, that, as time goes on, when they have got their dinner over, the others will take a bit more interest in it.
I notice, from the minutes of the Corporation of Birmingham, that a very influential deputation waited upon the Minister of Labour in regard to this problem, but that deputation, influential as it was, had no more than one Member of Parliament belonging to this side of the House who put forward the case on behalf of the Birmingham Corporation. That city, which the Minister of Labour, like myself, shares the honour of representing with the other 10 Members who are not here, was told by the Government that they could hold out no hope of being able to relieve the situation in the City of Birmingham. The representatives of the City of Birmingham told the Minister of Labour that they' were committed, as a corporation, to no less than £3,000,000 in respect of relief works for the unemployed, and they gave figures to show that the same amount, or thereabouts, also applied to the area of the Birmingham Board of Guardians, and yet they had to go away and report to the City of Birmingham that the Government were unable to do anything to relieve the unemployment problem by getting work for the unemployed in useful occupations
—necessary domestic and civic developments—because the Government of the day were unable to find any financial assistance or to suggest any schemes for relieving the tremendous burden which that industrial centre is bearing.
The Minister of Labour told the deputation from the City of Birmingham that the abnormal condition of unemployment was due to the considerable falling off of foreign trade. That is a very serious statement for him to have made. If the only hope is an extension of foreign trade over the pre-War position, it is hopeless for the unemployed, because of the developments that have taken place in other countries which we used to supply, and which now are able to supply themselves without buying from us, because of the fact that we have sent them the machinery with which to manufacture the goods which they used to purchase from us. That very thought convinced me, if of nothing else, that the Minister of Labour, perhaps owing to his many duties, had not visualised the situation as he ought to have done; but I trust that the Parliamentary Secretary, who is here this evening, will support this Motion, so that we may examine these schemes, not necessarily to impose them either on the Government or on this side of the House or on the country, but merely that they may be put forward for what they are worth. We cannot hope to continue for ever to be the workshop of the world. It is our own country that wants developing more and more. What about the great problem of agriculture? What about the fact that more and more land is going out of cultivation? Is there not room for examination of a problem of that kind by impartial people, and the submission of schemes on their merits, that they may stand the test of discussion and either fall or go through? Surely there is. We have got to get back to that problem whether we like it or not.
During the discussion last week, the problem of forestry also was raised on the Forestry Bill, and one of the Members for Dundee put some very cogent, facts before the House as to the value of developing forestry in this country. He disclosed the fact that we had imported during the last 12 months no less than £52,000,000 worth of timber
and £9,000,000 worth of wood pulp, making altogether something like £61,000,000 worth of goods which could be grown and sold more cheaply to the subordinate industries than they are now imported from other countries. The reply that we got front the Government Benches was that we are doing more than any other country in the world for forestry. That is not going to carry any conviction to the sane minds of the people of this country. The question has got to be answered, "Are you doing sufficient in that direction?"—not, "Are you doing more than anybody else?"
As I have said, numerous Committees have been set up to deal with various phases of this problem. Two of the most important that I recollect were those associated with what was called the problem of Reconstruction after the War. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) played a very important part in that, but now he has forgotten all about it. The suggestions of these Committees were of a very practical character. First of all, they recognised the problem, and, secondly, they gave considered decisions in every case in which it arose. I have a very lively and vivid recollection of the hope aroused by the Committee that dealt with after-War problems in relation to the iron and steel industry. Some very practical suggestions and decisions were arrived at by employers and employed and by outside bodies with a view to helping to resuscitate that trade after the War but nothing has been done in the case of that or any other trades which were examined by the various Committees set up during the War. We have had the Balfour Committee dealing with Trade and Industry for something like two years. They have examined some of the most expert witnesses on various trades and industries. They have collected most valuable evidence and tabulated statistics which must be of tremendous value to the country. What has become of them? [HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear!"] I say "hear, hear," too. Has it got to be put on the same shelves where the Reports of the After-War Committees have been put? If so, the Committee has not been worth the time and money spent on it. The proposal we bring forward to-night is not put forward
in a party spirit. I care little or nothing for party politics, but I care for the welfare of the country and the people who are in it, and that is more important than any. Have our party politics got to such a stage that on the greatest problem that this or any other country can be called upon to examine and endeavour to solve—is the cleavage so keen that we cannot sit round a table and at least examine something and decide by a majority to submit our proposals for what they are worth to the intelligence of the rest of the country? I can visualise out of this Motion, if it is carried, the possibility of setting up something that will take the place of that Parliament of Labour which many of us have talked about to bring about a measure of industrial peace. I can visualise the Committee evolving into what may be called a national economic council for the purpose of examining the whole ramifications of industry and trade affecting all sections associated with it. It is for these reasons that I am delighted to have the opportunity and honour of being asked to second the Resolution which I hope will save our off-spring from the horrors attaching to poverty due to unemployment.

Mr. CADOGAN: I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words
at a time when employment is improving, it is undesirable that industrial capital should he diminishes in order to provide relief schemes and that large sums should be drawn off from tae normal channels of trade for extemporised measures which can only be palliatives.
I have listened with attention to the two hon. Members' speeches to ascertain whether they were about to provide, us with any expedient which would be original enough to justify us in a repetition of this oft-recurring Debate upon unemployment. Apart from the consideration that they have failed to address themselves very much to their own Motion or to elucidate the point as to why a Select Committee should be more efficacious than any other body of the kind, I have come to the conclusion that this Debate, like its predecessors, only serves to demonstrate how absolutely barren of practical suggestion the party opposite is even when in Opposition. If, while they are enjoying the
delightfully irresponsible situation in which they now find themselves, they are unable to supply any more efficacious expedient than has been brought forward to-night, how completely sterile they would be if and when they are called upon not only to conceive schemes but to give them birth. To provide solutions which would appear to be of any service when the task of translating theory into practice rests upon someone else's shoulders ought surely to be a simple one.
The Socialist party incurred a certain amount of ridicule when in office for not at once proceeding to carry into practice the whole of the Labour party programme. This line of criticism in my opinion was neither just nor legitimate, and I have refrained from taking advantage of it either in the House or outside. It was quite obvious that they neither had a mandate nor a majority to fulfil promises which were conditional upon both a mandate and a majority, but to this generalisation there is one exception. Without any doubt, the country gave them a mandate to provide a solution to this great economic problem, and if they had been competent to produce such a solution, they would have secured an overwhelming majority in the House or perhaps the unanimous consent of all parties, and the seal of public sanction would have been set upon their endeavour. But the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) came out by the same door that he entered in.
Our main objection to the proposal contained in this Motion is not, as the two hon. Members seemed to suggest, a party objection. It is that it cuts across a principle which we must all recognise, that should be maintained inviolate if the industries of the country are to be resuscitated. That principle is admirably expressed in the wording of our Amendment, and in case any hon. Member may imagine that my admiration for its phraseology is due to any lack of modesty on my part, I must confess at once that it is a plagiarism, and that the copyright is held by the Leader of the Opposition. They are his words, not mine. It is a curious circumstance that in the last few weeks we have twice appropriated the sentiments of the Leader of the Opposition in order to
prove our case against that of hon. Members who sit behind him. In the event of it being thought that I have had recourse to the old familiar trick of isolating a sentence without the context, I have taken care to provide myself with the context. The speech from which this Amendment was drawn was delivered by the right hon. Gentleman in 1924, when as Prime Minister he adumbrated the Labour party policy. In that speech the preliminary remark was to this effect:
We shall concentrate, not first of all on the relief of unemployment but upon the restoration of trade.
I ask the two hon. Members who moved and seconded, how a Select Committee proposes to deal with the restoration of trade? I rubbed my eyes in bewilderment when my attention was drawn to the speech from which I have just quoted. How did it come about that he was freed on that occasion from the Mephistophelian supervision and control of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton)? The late Minister of Labour, and I regret to see he is not in his place, is also on my side. When he was in office he expressed views which are very difficult to reconcile with a great deal that he said before, and with what he has said since. When in office he gave vent to these views:
If the Government ever accept the principle of paying for ordinary municipal work out of the taxpayers' money, I am afraid that, although we may have an almost bottomless purse, the bottom of that purse will he found.
If anybody could help to find the bottom of our purse it will be the Select Committee suggested by hon. Members opposite. But surely, it is rather intriguing to find the Leader of the Opposition emerging as a champion of industrial capital, and the right hon. Member for Preston evincing some tender solicitude for the welfare of the taxpayer. I always prefer the unsolicited testimonials of my opponents to the mechanical support of my own colleagues, and, therefore, I welcome these testimonials in support of my case from hon. Members opposite. I am very glad to see the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) in his place. I am sure that he does us honour to suffer the tedium of speeches from back bench Members, and it would be very ungrateful on my part were I to leave him out of my argument. For the time being,
I will refrain from quoting from "Reynold's Weekly," but I shall hope later on to ask him a question, the answer to which will not prove altogether acceptable to hon. Members who sit behind him.
In the meantime, let me impress upon the House that we have not only the right hon. Gentleman with us, but we also have the experts on our side. The Unemployment Grants Committee have found that in making grants to accelerate work there is merely a tendency to substitute one form of work for another, and that form of work which can be performed in normal cases by the local authority. Under the present schemes of the Unemployment Grants Committee there has been a gigantic expenditure of money, and the point has now been reached where anticipatory work is well-nigh complete. In their Fifth Report the Committee say:
After six winters, the scheme has passed the period of its great utility and it is henceforth difficult to avoid subsidising work undertaken by the local authorities.
I should like to quote from that Report a very pregnant sentence which exactly squares with the speech of the Leader of the Opposition which I quoted earlier. They say:
In so far as such schemes may continue to be evolved there is the further objection that they might show a tendency to divert capital from the normal trade developments which are now to be looked for, and would therefore hinder rather than assist the relief of unemployment from the proper trade channels.
Those words square with the words of the Leader of the Opposition, and surely they rule out any expedient which a Select Committee might devise. Therefore, I am right in saying that we have not only the right hon. Gentleman opposite on our side, but we have the expert witnesses.
Let me briefly address myself to the details of the scheme put forward by hon. Members opposite. Even if the principle of setting up a Select Committee can be regarded as sound, which I am very far from conceding, is a Select Committee the appropriate or convenient body for the purpose? It is true that, according to our procedure, an instruction can be given to a Select Committee to deal with a matter of this kind, but, even so, I very much doubt whether we should not
find that this function suggested by hon. Members opposite would be beyond the capacity or province of a Select Committee. I admit that that is a debatable point and it may not be accepted by hon. and right hon. Members opposite, who may know more about the procedure of the House than I do, and are better qualified to speak on the subject; but I do maintain that a Select Committee is not the appropriate authority to deal with a matter of this kind.
9.0 p.m.
I should like to address to hon. and right hon. Members opposite who may speak after me this question: Is this Select Committee really going to be set up to enable the Government to consider new schemes of development? If so, it is redundant. The Committee on Civil Research has already been set up, and it answers the same purpose. Be that as it may, there is one point of detail which in my opinion, and I am quite certain in the opinion of the right hon. Member for Colne Valley, absolutely vitiates the whole scheme. There is in the plan which is being put forward by hon. Members opposite a painful resemblance to the Bill which was promoted by them in the middle of last Session. It will be remembered that that Bill had for its object the setting up of a Board on which the Treasury were not represented. That Board was to be empowered to play ducks and drakes with £10,000,000 of the taxpayers' money. I understand that it is proposed that the Select Committee should frame and submit a scheme of Estimates to this House. In other words, it is to operate over the head of the Treasury altogether. Now comes the question which I desire to put to the right hon. Member for Colne Valley. Can the right hon. Gentleman really with a clear conscience go into the Lobby to vote for a scheme which will absolutely flout the Treasury? It is an absolutely monstrous suggestion that we should have such a scheme put forward. It is a scheme which no responsible Government, responsible to the taxpayers and responsible for the welfare of the industries of this country, could countenance one moment.
Finally, there is this consideration in examining and testing the details of the scheme, that whatever body you may set up to deal with unemployment, be it a Board of a Select Committee or any
other body, the modus operandi would be the same. The scheme, I understand, is to fill up the depression by cutting off the apex of the peak ahead of it, so that you get a smooth level of unemployment which is immune from seasonal variations. It is a scheme which looks well enough on paper, especially when it is accompanied by statistics which are beyond the ordinary lay caps city to grasp. What are the ordinary economic facts of the day? At the beginning of this year there were. 200,000 more people out of employment than on the corresponding day of last year. To-day, in round figures, there are only, and I say "only" advisedly, 50,000 more people out of employment than on the corresponding day of last year. With such an improvement. [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh. Surely, there is improvement if, instead of there being 200,000 more people out of employment, there are now only 50,000 more people unemployed than at this time last year. Taking into account the existing conditions and what has happened in the last six months, surely that is a considerable improvement. Would it not be a very serious risk to allow a, Select Committee to deal with the situation by artificial schemes?
You run the risk that, instead of maintaining an even level of employment, the curve will again take the wrong direction. We can only arrive at one inevitable conclusion. Although it is quite true that there is available credit in this country, It is imperative that this credit should be applied to industry rather than financing schemes of the nature advocated by hon. Member opposite. This question may be asked; what part can the Government play in making credit available for industry? Sometimes I feel that the only solution of this terrible problem is that we should let industry work out its own salvation. That may not be practical politics, and, if it is not a, practical solution then surely a cure is to be found in legislation which encourages, protects and fosters industry, that form of legislation which is represented in the last two years by such measures as the Trade Facilities Act, the Credit Insurance of Exports Act, the Safeguarding of Industries Act, the Electricity Act, the development of those Dependencies of ours overseas which look to us to provide them with the necessary
plant for their development and last, but by no means least—I do not mind saying this although it may not be an orthodox view on this side—those international agreements with regard to hours and kindred economic questions. That, I believe, is the right line of advance.
We may not have gone sufficiently far in this direction; that is a criticism which I am quite prepared to accept, but surely the steps we have taken have been towards the light. The Government, I think, have been unfairly criticised for not legislating enough in this directon. The new saviour of the Liberal party, a few days ago, accused the Government of trying to feed Cerebus with birdseed, but there is more vitamin content in one birdseed than there is in the whole of the scheme now put forward.
I have reserved for the end of my argument the strongest advocacy of our case, which is to be found on the benches opposite, but unfortunately the right hon. Gentleman who helps us in this respect is absent. I refer to the right hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas). When I want to discover the bent of the right hon. Gentleman's mind, I do not search in the columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT, I do not necessarily sit in this House as an attentive listener to his speeches; I search in the back numbers of "Answers" and there I get to grips with the right hon. Gentleman himself.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Why not try "Ally Sloper"?

Mr. CADOGAN: There the right hon. Gentleman gets clear of the "madding crowd," and, like other of his colleagues on the Front Opposition Bench, when he gets into the cool seclusion of his own study, he displays a Toryism which, if I may be allowed to borrow from the extravagant vocabulary of Mr. Chen, "is positively Byzantine." In that organ of the Press, the right hon. Gentleman wrote as follows:
There is no absolute internal solution of the problem. The problem is one which is inextricably mixed up with a dozen problems of world wide range.
That does not suit the view of some of his colleagues on those benches. Is the right hon. Gentleman opposite going to tell me that he is going to tackle these formidable problems of world wide range
with a Select Committee it is proposed to set up by this Motion? Does he not rather agree with the right hon. Member for Colne Valley that the two great Measures capable of restoring economic stability are the operation of the Dawes Scheme and the Treaty of Locarno.

Mr. SNOWDEN: Is that a quotation from what I have said?

Mr. CADOGAN: I speak under correction, but I thought the right hon. Gentleman did not say it, he wrote it.

HON. MEMBERS: Where and when?

Mr. CADOGAN: I think it was in "Reynolds."

An HON. MEMBER: Take it back.

Mr. CADOGAN: I will take it back, but I should like to be quite sure that my apology is justified. But a Select Committee—is this all that is proposed after what we have heard about the fundamental reorganisation of industry on the lines of public ownership and democratic control of essential services? I confess I prefer the Select Committee to that alternative, but I think the policy of the present Government is preferable to either. Hon. Members opposite cannot get away from the fact that we are at the mercy of relentless economic causes which can no more be hindered in their operation than the tide of the ocean can be stemmed. Let us not attempt to run counter to these laws or regard them as necessarily opposed to the nation's interest, but let us rather have faith that they will operate to solve the problem which has baffled for so long the statesmanship, not of one party but of every party in this country.

Mr. GEOFFREY PETO: I beg to second the Amendment.
I can safely assume that every Member of the Committee realises fully and sympathises deeply with the tragedy of unemployment, and will gladly do anything he can to find a remedy. I propose in my few remarks to deal only with the fundamental causes of unemployment and the possible remedies. The fundamental cause of the wave of unemployment which swept over this country soon after the War was the destruction of capital during the War. The late Sir Hugh Bell, in a
letter last summer, told us that it cost at least £250, which someone had to save, in order to provide the plant, machinery and factory space for each new steel worker, and not only that, someone had to save capital in order that the new worker might be fed and clothed. Someone also had to save the capital to provide him with a house after he left his parents' home. In view of this, one would have expected that everyone would have agreed that what we most need to do to-day is to promote, encourage, and assist the saving of capital, at any rate the accumulation of capital at a rate at least equal to the birth-rate, to provide for the workers of the future. I wish it was the case. Unfortunately, we see very much the reverse. Not only that, but there is throughout the country a large body of Socialists who are opposed both to capital and profits—profits which, after all, are the only way by which capital can be accumulated. They hold that the destroying of capital will help Socialism. [Interruption.] I propose to verify that statement.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): The last speaker was heard very well on the whole, and I would ask hon. Members to listen to the present speaker without interruption.

Mr. PETO: I propose to substantiate what I have said. Even Socialism cannot exist without the saving of capital. You see that in Russia, where Bolshevist mines and works, built by British capital to a large extent, are now out of date and gone to waste simply for want of capital, and Socialist or Communist Russia is appealing to capitalists every day for the loan of more capital. Socialism cannot exist without a saving of capital. But if the capitalist calf is ultimately to be slaughtered on the altar of Marx, it seems desirable that the calf should he fatted first. Yet I can give quotations from hon. Members opposite from exactly the opposite point of view. For instance, the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), the chairman of the Independent Labour party, on 27th July, 1925, said:
It is the duty of Socialists to attack Capitalism at every opportunity, and to wage relentless war until it is overthrown.
Is that the way to increase capital or to remove unemployment? The hon. Member
for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) on 1st December, 1925, said:
I am standing in with the Communists in preaching the overthrow of Capitalism and the establishment of Communism and Socialism in this country.
The hon. Gentleman now is a Socialist Front Bencher, having obtained promotion after that speech. Then we come to the Independent Labour party conference at Glasgow, in 1920. At that conference a resolution was passed
condemning all attempts to bring about a rapprochement between Capital and Labour, or any method of compromise aimed at arriving at more amicable relations between Labour and Capitalism short of the total abolition of the Capitalist system.
The interesting feature of that resolution was that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) was in the chair at the conference, and I presume we may take it that those are the economic views of the Socialist ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer. At any rate I think I have justified my remarks with regard to the Socialists and their objection to the accumulation of capital. But the Coalition and Conservatives are not altogether guiltless in this question of unemployment, because I consider that in their natural desire to help the working man with regard to education, housing, sickness, old age and so on, they have run grave risk of putting such a burden on industry that the workman, though he may reap these benefits, may lose his employment in doing so. That is a point which we must watch very carefully, especially in the critical days of the present time. Taxes, rates and compulsory insurance in tins country have risen from £133,000,000 in 1900 to £958,000,000 to-day. Social reform expenditure here is 78s. 6d. per head, twice the German, six times the French, 25 times the Italian, and I do not know how many times the American expenditure. They have plenty of capital in the States, consequently they have prosperity and practically no social services, and no need for them. Turning to our side of the question, I notice that the secretary of Cammell Laird and Company, the great steel company, stated that the Poor Rate was equivalent to 6d. a ton on steel tyres in 1914, but was 18s. 11d. a ton on steel tyres in 1923. There you get again a very serious handicap on employment.

Mr. KELLY: What part of the country was that?

Mr. PETO: In Sheffield, I imagine. Personally, I am strongly in favour of social services, but discretion must be exercised in the burden which they place on industry, because continued employment and a fair wage are of far more vital importance to the workman than even social services. In spite of these adverse factors capital was being accumulated and unemployment was being reduced until, in April last, unemployment fell to 981,000 odd, the lowest figure since this crisis began. Then right hon. and hon. Members opposite took action in support of views which I have just quoted from their speeches. They engineered the general strike and the miners' strike. The result of that was that the country lost £300,000,000 to £400,000,000. Unemployment, without including the miners who were out, reached the figure of 1,645.000 odd on 5th July last. It has since fallen to 1,196,000. That is better, but it, is still 70,000 worse than last year, and the whole of the progress that was gradually being made was shattered by the action of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. Yet they bring in Resolutions for remedying unemployment.
Let us turn for a moment to the remedy for this disease. It is quite obvious that hon. Members opposite have no remedy. Their period of office showed that up only too glaringly. To-night the hon. Member who moved the Resolution dealt in eloquent terms with the Forestry Bill, but, as a matter of fact the party opposite voted against the Bill. The Socialists attempted to throw it out, and then the next clay they bring it forward as a means to cure unemployment. I read in the "Daily Herald" to-day an article on unemployment which told us what vastly important speeches were going to be made from the benches opposite to-night, and I came across this sentence:
Labour holds that there is a remedy for unemployment.
I rushed on full of excitement, and the next sentence I came to was:
That remedy is work.
I wonder what the unfortunate trade unionists in the country have to contribute in the way of salary to the leader writer who produced that brilliant thought. Then I turn to Russia, where you have got Socialism and Communism
and confiscation of capital and everything else that any hon. Members opposite could possibly desire. What do we find there? The Commissar for Labour, Mr. Schmidt, reported in Moscow at the end of last year that there were 2,000,000 unemployed in a country of vastly less industrial character and with vastly less industrial employés than this country. These men are paid the munificent sum of 7s. 6d. a week if they are skilled men, and 5s. if they are unskilled. Obviously Socialism and Communism have produced no cure for unemployment in Russia. Employment was very much better before they were introduced.
The hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Greenall) who presented this Resolution to-night, proposed a Committee to consider and report on schemes of work and to estimate the financial assistance required from moneys provided by Parliament. He said very little about the Committee, but as far as I could gather part of its function was to provide schemes of employment for the unemployed and another part of its function was to watch Satan who is already providing too much employment. The latter part of this suggestion is certainly a novel one and I do not know of any Committee which is working on those lines at present. With regard to providing employment, there is already, as has been said, the Unemployment Grants Committee, which has been sitting for several years and which has already sanctioned loans, amounting to about £100,000,000, to local authorities, of which the State pays from a quarter to one-third of the interest and sinking fund. That Committee has done and is doing excellent work and it seems entirely unnecessary to duplicate it by another Committee. This other Committee is only going to mean a further burden on industry and further taxes on the capital of this country. I should have thought that if any Committee were necessary to help unemployment it would have been very much more a Committee to consider the shortage of capital accumulation to-day and the consequent unemployment and to consider schemes for relieving capital and industry from their present burdens. I think a Committee on those lines might be able to do a great deal of good.
The true remedy lies in three directions; firstly, the Socialist party must
realise that capital and labour have one inseparable and indivisible interest, and every time you attack capitalists or capitalism or capital you are only additionally and more intensely harming working men's employment and wages. I hope that hon. Members opposite will make amends for the disaster they brought on the country last year, and the unemployment which they have caused, by working with us this year to promote good will, co-operation and increased production throughout the country. Secondly, I hope that the Government will make every possible effort to reduce expenditure, even, if necessary, temporarily postponing schemes which they are anxious to bring in but which would further add to the burden on industry. Thirdly, I hope we shall continue, in the terms of the Amendment, to be moved by other of my hon. Friends, to develop our trade with the Empire and do our utmost to build up those enormous resources which are going to prove of such value to this country. If all parties in the House and outside will co-operate on such lines as these, industry will prosper and improvement in wages and employment will quickly follow.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I had hoped when I saw this Motion on the Paper—a Motion to call attention to the question of unemployment and inviting the House to appoint a Committee to examine more deeply the methods of dealing with it—that we should have had a real discussion in this House upon what I consider to be one of the most serious social and economic symptoms of the day. I say quite respectfully and without offence that I regret that so much of the discussion has been utilised in sterile recrimination. Four or five Governments have dealt with this problem, including the Government of which I was the head. We have all done our best; I will say that for every Government. But the net result is that you have at the present moment something that has never been witnessed before in the whole history of this country or in any other great industrial country. Some hon. Gentlemen who have spoken have, I think, under-estimated the gravity of the problem. I regret that they did not devote their undoubted ability, if I may say so as an old Member of this House, to really considering that aspect of the matter.
It is no use saying that you are only 50,000 worse than you were last year. What is the meaning of that? This is the seventh year of unemployment, and the best you can say is that you are only 50,000 worse than last year. If anyone had said in this House six years ago that on the 8th of March, 1927, we should have over a million unemployed in this country, it would have staggered everybody in the House and most people would have said, "You are talking folly."
But that is not the real extent of the problem. It is perfectly true that there are about 1,150,000 unemployed—I forget the exact figures, but it is quite bad enough at any rate. Hon. Gentlemen have only to look at the Poor Law to see that these figures are just being squeezed out through a sieve, as it were, into another compartment of unemployment. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris) has been good enough to put in my hand the figures for the London County Council. This time last year there were 42 per thousand of the population on the Poor Law. To-day, you have 52.8 per thousand of the population on the Poor Law. The figures revealed by the Exchanges do not fully or adequately disclose the real gravity, the solemn gravity, of this problem, and it is no use pretending that they do. After seven years we have the worst unemployment that this country has ever seen, in duration and magnitude. Is there an hon. Gentleman who will say that we shall have returned to normal by this time next year? What is normal? Even in the days of prosperity we had very serious unemployment. It was a problem even then that awaited settlement by some Government or by some party. In 1909–10 the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was then a, member of the same Government as myself, introduced an Unemployment Bill. Even in the pre-War days when unemployment ranged about 12 per cent. or 2 per cent. and ran up in extreme cases for short periods to 10 per cent., you still had unemployment, but after the last six or seven years, I ask the hon. Gentleman who spoke opposite with such complacency, and his friends, would they like now to predict that we shall return to a figure of 600,000 in the course of the next 12 months? If not, what is the good of
merely quoting speeches and what the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said four or five years ago? He has forgotten it long ago. What is the good of quoting my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas)? What has that to do with it? We are here as a House of Commons, representing 42,000,000 or 43,000,000 people, to deal with one of the gravest problems with which we have ever been confronted, and this is not, if I may say so respectfully, the attitude in which to deal with it.
All hon. Members ask for in the Motion, and I wish they would ask it in the spirit of their Motion, is that there should be a Committee to examine the problem. If it is a Select Committee it must be one on which the Government will have a majority, though there will be representatives of the other parties there also. I do not quite like the framing of the Motion but that is nothing to do with the queston and the Government can easily put it right. For instance, I do not think it is comprehensive enough. I do not think mere relief schemes are going to settle the problem. Even one or two of the suggestions made by the last speaker are quite within the scope and purview of a committee inquiring into unemployment —suggestions with regard to capital and other questions—and therefore, it ought to be a broad committee. It ought to be an investigation of the whole problem. It ought to include agriculture. This Motion in form does not include agriculture, but seems rather to be directed to the setting up of relief works. That will not settle unemployment. You have to consider the whole problem all round and I beg the Government and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour to take a broader view than the mere flinging of taunts from one side of the House to the other and saving, "You Conservatives" or "You Coalitionists," or "You Socialists" are to blame, as the case may be. You have the fact and it is nothing which can be explained by shallow taunts of that kind. It is something which goes much deeper. Even if you came to the normal, according to the best economists the figures were underestimated before the War. That is the opinion of men like Mr. Layton and others who have re-examined the problem
—that there was an under-estimate of the people out of work before the War, and that even normality means 500,000 people out of work. If that be the case there is a problem which, apart from the six or seven years of abnormal unemployment, is worth investigation. Why cannot we do it?
There is a new factor, apart from the War factor, and that is the limitation of emigration. In the old days you had free emigration to the United States. Now it is limited. The surplus population of Ireland went there. Now they are free to come here. You cannot send the same proportion of your population across the seas and in spite of all the talk of emigration to the Dominions believe me, there is a sort of tardiness there to welcome emigration and for a very obvious reason. The emigrants we can offer are emigrants who come from the towns, and the towns in the Dominions are just as congested in many respects as ours. The people they want are people who work on the land and we have not got them to spare. Therefore, you find the same unconscious, unavowed resistance to emigration in the Dominions that you have in America, except that in America definite limitations are laid down. But there are undefined limitations in other lands as well. When I was Prime Minister and was discussing the question of migration with some of the Dominions, I found, in phrase, the greatest readiness to welcome t. But you will find that emigration, on the whole, is regarded, I will not say with suspicion, but as something which has to be very carefully safeguarded. You will not be able to pour people into the undeveloped countries of the world whether under the British flag or some other flag. You will not be able to find the same outlet as you found before the War for a long time to come. Labour is protecting its wages in every country and they know from experience in America that bringing shoals of people from the low wage countries of Europe into America has an effect in depressing wages, and therefore, they have that unconscious resistance to emigration. That is a new element added to our unemployment problem and we have to face it.
I am not going to express an opinion as to whether trade is going to recover to a large extent. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment seems very comfortable about it and thinks that unemployment is gradually coming to an end. He was very sanguine that things were going to improve. I wonder why lie thinks so. These figures show that in London, at any rate, there is not that great improvement. We are working off a great many arrears at the present moment, but let him just look at all the output of the world and at our fundamental industries, the essential ones, the biggest ones of all. Take coal, which is up against the fact that before the War you had 3½ per cent. of the ships of the world equipped with oil, and you have now got a third of them; the great development in water power, the great saving in coal by its conversion into power—all those facts, the fact that America has become the great source of capital to the world, and that, therefore-it is capturing the export trade which was ours, because we were the people who provided two or three hundred millions a year to the world for the purpose of equipping its industries—all those facts are fundamental facts which I would advise the hon. Gentleman to look into very carefully if he feels confident that this is merely a passing phase and that at the last we have come to the end of it.

Mr. CADOGAN: I am not sanguine of that, but I am equally not sanguine that a Select Committee will be of the slightest use. That is my point.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am coming to that. I do not say that a Select Committee would find a remedy, not by any means, but I say that this is a matter which wants inquiry. Whether it is a question which a Select Committee is the best equipped for looking into is a question which, I think, is worth considering.

Mr. CADOGAN: But that is the Motion.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I know, but I hope we are going beyond the mere technicalities of the question, and that we are going to come here to-night, when there is no question of confidence in the Government and no sort of party conflict about a thing of this sort, to examine a
grave problem which is not a party problem, but which affects the nation as a whole. If the Government were to say: "No, we are of opinion that a Select Committee is not the proper means for inquiry," I cannot imagine, my hon. Friends on this side saying: "We insist on a Select Committee and will have nothing else." A Select Committee has got its limitations. It can only sit during the time Parliament is sitting, I believe, but it does not matter. That is a question to be considered, but surely the hon. Gentleman will not say that we have not come to a time when we ought to make one further effort as a Parliament, with all the parties that represent the nation, to find out what is the matter. Does he deny that there is something serious the matter with the trade, and with the industry, and with the employment of this country? It is not a question of the cost in money, although that is gigantic. We would have done far better to have spent the money that we spend on what we call doles on the provision of work—far better. We would have had something substantial that would have remained, but that is not the worst of the cost.
The worst of the cost is that we have hundreds of thousands of young men who are being brought up in enforced idleness. That is by far the most serious thing. I have heard a good deal of this from my inquiries in the country when I have gone up and down, and they all tell me that this is a very serious factor, that young men are seeking work and cannot find it. They can only find it by putting out older men who have to maintain families, and employers naturally will not do that. The result is that you have young men growing up who are only able to obtain a casual job, which is almost the worst for them—the sort of fetching and carrying jobs, in which they are not learning things, in which they are not having the discipline of labour, and which affects them right through their lives; and even when prosperity comes to this country, we shall be paying a national debt of demoralisation as the result. Those are the things that I hope the House of Commons will go into.
I am not going to answer what was said by the hon. Gentleman—I could easily do it—about the work done on reconstruction when I was Prime Minister. All that I
know is this, that there has been no fresh idea evolved since then—none. There was then, first of all, the setting up of a Fund to develop new roads in this country, an essential thing for the business of this country. We raised a Fund which for the first year was £7,000,000; it is now £18,000,000. Since then, since 1920–21, the motor traffic of this country has doubled, and we have not met the problem. The hon. Gentleman asked: "Where are you to find the money?" The money is there. He helped to take away about a fifth of it, but the Fund is there. Then take afforestation. That was started, on a quite inadequate scale, let me say at once, although I was at the head of the Government. It was in adequate for the purpose of even making up the depletion of the forests of this country due to the War, and we wanted a good deal more than that.
I went through some valleys of South Wales the other day. In South Wales they are getting a million and a half tons per 'annum of pit props from the worst land in the South of France. Anybody who knows the country from Bordeaux down to Biarritz will know what poor land it is, utter sand. We are getting our pit props from there for South Wales, and yet there I saw those hillsides, absolutely bare, not used for any purpose at all. They ought to have been covered with those trees for the purpose of pit props, and there were the pits right underneath. That is one of the problems that we ought to be dealing with, and it is worth thinking about. The hon. Members opposite who have spoken regard this as if it were some great Socialist scheme to chase money away, but it is the best investment this country could possibly have. We must face the fact that our population is up by two or three millions and that our foreign trade is down by over 20 per cent. Let me give another fact.

Mr. REMER: Is the right hon. Gentle man aware that coal goes to France, and they bring back pit props, and that, therefore, the freights on the pit props are so low that it would not pay to grow them here?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: There would be no freight at all to pay if you planted the trees along those hillsides, which are within a mile or two miles from the pits. Let me put another fact. The hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion
said we ought really to consider the question of the development of our soil. I have some figures here, I think, from the Balfour Committee's Report, but if not, they come from an equally good Inquiry In 1922, taking food, drink, and tobacco—and we have not increased in drink nor in tobacco, and, therefore, the increase must he in food—at prices which were higher, we imported into this country £484,000,000 worth of stuff from across the seas; in 1924, it was 2543,000,000; and in 1925, the prices were lower, but it was £539,000,000. In spite of the fact that prices are lower, we are increasing our imports from abroad. Meanwhile, the produce of our own soil is going down year by year.
I will put it in another form. In 1913 we will take the imports in volume at 100 for food from abroad; in 1922 they went down to 98.9; in 1923 they went up to 114.5; in 1924 they went up to 125.2; and in 1925 they were 122.9. That is volume. I have given values. Take both, and you will find that the imports from abroad have gone up steadily by enormous quantities, whereas our produce, our yield, at home is going down. I agree with the hon. Members who moved and seconded the Motion that this ought not to be a party question. It is a question which really goes to the very life of this community. You can go on like this a long time, but something will happen. You are making big profits. Why? I will tell you. In the competition of the world we are retaining the sale of the best quality goods. We can beat the world at that, and there is a bigger profit. That accounts for the fact that the seriousness of the situation is rather masked by the Income Tax returns. There are huge profits on good quality goods, which do not provide as much employment as the small profits on the worst quality. Therefore, it is not so much a question of profits for Income Tax. It is a question of employment for the people. You can go on making big profits on these high quality goods, and then maintain a million of your people in idleness. In the end, it will bring us down surely. It will be like a cancer eating into the life of the community.
10.0 p.m.
I beg the Government not to enter into any sort of recrimination and taunt. It is easily done. I have done it myself
many a time, and there is nothing easier. This is a grave problem. It is a solemn one. It has gone on year after year, and year after year, and I cannot meet a man who has studied the problem who says that it is at an end. Therefore, I would ask the Government to find out whether it is not possible, instead of spending scores of millions on keeping young men—and that is the new aspect of the unemployment to-day; it is not the old men, but the young men, a very large percentage of whom are on the dole—whether it is not possible to find some form of employment which will enrich the country and enrich them. I believe it can be done. Let them investigate it with a fair, impartial committee. What committee they appoint I do not care. There is an advantage and a disadvantage about a Committee of the House of Commons. A Committee of the House or Commons is very apt, of course, to break up into partisan views. On the other hand, they might have a committee which would examine the thing quite impartially, without any bias of that kind. I ask them not to give a direct negative to this. If they do, of course, they can defeat it easily. They have a very large majority, and I am not blaming them for being obedient to the behests of the Government. You must have a certain discipline; otherwise you cannot keep a Government in at all. Therefore, I am not engaging in any sort of taunt or jibe, but I ask them to go beyond that, and to see whether it is not possible to re-examine this problem, and whether it is not a time to use the fact that you have a million unemployed, to put your house in order, to do things that you could not do if everybody was engaged—making new roads, opening up your towns, making preparations for the great motor traffic, and seeing whether you cannot do something to improve your land. Whatever the problem is, whatever suggestion my hon. Friend below me may make, I would not exclude any method of providing employment, but I do beg them to appoint an impartial committee to inquire into this matter, whether they accept this or not.

Mr. BOOTHBY: The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has made an extremely interesting and suggestive
speech, and if I may, very humbly, be allowed to say so, I do not think he has at all over-estimated the gravity of the problem which we are discussing to-night. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the question of agricultural development, and also the question of afforestation, and I think that before we really consider in detail the problem of unemployment in this country, we ought to get down to the basic facts that, after all, there is nothing which warps, and hinders and holds up the basic industries of any country to such an extent as price fluctuation and currency fluctuation. I do not know whether hon. Members in this House ever read a very interesting Report which was presented to the Minister of Agriculture in January, 1925 —a Report on the Stabilisation of Agricultural Prices, but it shows perfectly clearly in that Report, that every time we have had a great depression in agriculture—and agriculture, after all, is typical of other basic industries in this country—it has been clue to a deflationary policy, and there is no use blinking this fact any longer, that the main cause and the root and fundamental cause of that depression and the unemployment in the basic industries during the last five years is the currency policy which has been pursued in this country. You cannot get away from it.
I am not in the least disposed to argue at the present time that that policy was in the long run unwise. In the future it may prove to be a wise one, but that it has hit the basic industries of this country almost mortally, that it has driven them almost altogether out of action I do not think can be disputed. There are two schools of thought. One says that this country is primarily a mercantile country, and the other that it is an industrialised country, and in the last five years the mercantile school has won. I am not sure they are not right, but in the winning of it they have practically put out, for the time being, the basic industries—the shipbuilding trade, the iron and steel trade and the export coal trade. On the other hand, the banking and the insurance industries, all the mercantile and trading industries have undoubtedly gained, and that is what has enabled us to produce this enormous income year after year during the depression. Obviously because what the Industrialists
have lost the merchants have gained in invisible exports.
The fact is that in pursuing the currency policy which we have pursued, we have very nearly destroyed some of the basic industries. Thank God, we have got to the end of that. I think there is no doubt about it. The policy pursued has been pursued to the end. We have got back to the gold standard. We are now shackled to reality, and I do not think any further diversion of a serious character need be anticipated. So that we can look ahead with a certain amount of confidence. But I think there is a great deal that remains to be done, and if I may suggest to the House two lines of thought that might prove to be productive of something, I would say that in addition to assisting agriculture in every possible way—and I think that the credit proposals which have been put forward in this House will do a great deal to assist the farmers of this country —we might really seriously consider whether we should not go in for a very drastic policy of Colonial and Imperial development. After all, if you eliminate the United States to-day, and if you eliminate Russia to-day—two more or less self-contained areas—you cannot help being struck by the fact that there is to-day a glut of production in the big basic manufacturing industries, arid that there is a lack of production in raw materials all over the world. The balance is not evenly struck, and what we have to try and do is to increase the production of raw materials and foodstuffs so as to allow them to catch up with the production in this country of highly manufactured goods. I would urge upon His Majesty's Government that they should seriously consider a very bold policy of development as far as our Crown Colonies are concerned. I know the position is very difficult and I realise that we have done a great deal. The East African and Palestine loans have made demands upon the Treasury which have been very formidable, and I do not suppose that in the immediate future many more demands of this character can be met, but I am perfectly certain that, as far as the Crown Colonies are concerned, every penny that we put forward, whether by way of direct subsidy or by way of guaranteed loan, ultimately repays us with interest in the end.
But there is also the question of the Dominions, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) talked about the question of migration. I do think that General Smuts went to the root of the whole matter when he said in 1923:
You cannot expect us to take migrants in large numbers from your shores unless you can provide markets for the goods they handle once they come to us.
I would urge the Government—and I know it is sheer heresy on my part to say this—to give very serious consideration to what has been known as the stabilisation policy with regard to the raw materials of the Dominions. I think it would do much to help unemployment in this country if we could get some agreement with the Dominions whereby we could give some preference to the raw materials which they produce, and if they would reduce their tariff against certain of our manufactured goods. But there is a danger, and I think it will be realised in the course of the next 10 years, that the whole of the imports of wheat and meat into this country will fall into the hands of monopolies. There will be a monopoly for wheat—a milling combine to control the import of wheat. There will be also a meat combine which will control the imports of meat. In fact, that is going on now. If that ever comes about and monopolies are established, no Government can possibly afford to stand aside and take no action whatsoever. Some sort of supervision will be absolutely vital. Supposing the millers of this country formed a combine and supposing you were to form them into a statutory authority, charged with the control of the imports of wheatstuffs into this country; there is no reason why you should not be able, without the imposition of any tariff or duty, to give a preference to the Dominions, and if you could give that preference to the Dominions the Dominions themselves would be able to make reductions in certain tariffs.
I could dilate on that subject for an indefinite length of time. I submit that that is the sort of subject to be considered by the Imperial Economic Committee. That Committee ought to be the most important Committee in the country to-day. It is of infinitely greater importance than the Select Committee
which has been proposed by the Mover of the Motion. I could only wish that the terms of reference were wide enough, and the powers of the Imperial Economic Committee were strengthened, because it has in its power to do pioneer work in this direction which would be of inestimable value to the country. I would urge the Government not to be led away from the consideration of this great problem of stabilising prices by the cry of Socialism. What does it matter if it is Socialism or not, provided the end is gained. [HON. MEMBERS: "Come over here!"] Why are the farmers in this country in such a parlous condition to-day? It is, first of all, because of the currency policy, and secondly, because they are be-devilled the whole time by fluctuating prices. If we were to stabilise prices in this country and if we were to get some form of control over the imports of wheat and meat and basic products which are imported into this country, it would he to the advantage of the farmers. I do not mind whether it is done by means of an Import Control Board, or a reserve supply of storage of wheat, which could be released or held up by the central authority according as to whether there was a shortage or a glut, but I think it is a problem which requires grave consideration by the Government.
There is only one last point which I wish to raise. It is that the whole of industry in this country is in the process of reorganisation at the present time, and I think that reorganisation ought to be assisted and helped by the Government by every means in its power. You will see on all sides to-day the rise of the great combines; the great horizontal combines and trusts. You will see their successful development in the United States, and you will see it also in Germany. The industrial history of Germany in the last five years is a most fascinating story They have tried vertical trusts but they have been a failure. They have tried Socialism and that has been a failure. [Interruption.] Oh, yes, it has been tried and failed in the coal industry. They have abandoned both of those two, and they have taken to the horizontal combine. The European Steel Cartel is the most remarkable horizontal combine. A similar process is taking place in this country to-day. It
is the duty of the Government to watch that process very carefully, and if necessary to facilitate it. I would ask the Government to consider whether in regard to the steel industry of this country they would bring in legislation analogous to that of the Mining Industry Act, 1926, which would enable the steel masters of this country who wanted to amalgamate and increase the efficiency of the industry in that way to be able to sweep aside any obscurantist obstruction on the part of the small men in the industry and to get to business. That was done in the mining industry and it could easily be done in the steel industry and in the cotton industry if they desired it.
If we are ultimately and in the long run to come to any sort of terms with Europe, if we are to come to any sort of agreement with European countries in regard to production, hours, wages, and markets, we must have a negotiating authority on behalf of the industry of this country and not on behalf of one class. Why has this country been unable to enter the steel combine? Because there is nobody to negotiate on behalf of the steel industry. The sections of the industry are so busy fighting each other that they have not time to get together and send somebody to represent them in Berlin. That is why we have been unable to come to any arrangement in regard to wages, hours, markets, and other things with the Continental authorities. Sooner or later these national combines are going to become international, and I think that is a development in the heavy basic industries which is only to be welcomed. I think it is a matter which is vital to employment and to the reorganisation of industry. In whatever way they are to be linked up the matter goes far beyond the appointment of the Select Committee which is suggested in the Motion.
I think we must get something in the nature of an economic general staff, working under the Board of Trade, to advise the Government of the day on all these very complicated and difficult and complex questions, which are always in a state of flux, and to tender advice as to how to deal with particular matters. Cabinet Ministers are far too busy, their administrative duties are far too great, to allow them to follow all the portentous economic
developments and world movements of the day, and I would urge the hon. Gentleman who is to reply to-night to consider whether it would not be advisable to set up such an economic general staff. I wonder whether hon. Members in this House have ever made any study of the methods of Mr. Hoover, the Minister of Commerce in the United States? If they have not, I strongly advise them to do so. By comparison with the Ministry of Commerce in the United States, the Board of Trade in this country is a mere spectator of the economic life of this country. It provides not information comparable with the information provided by Mr. Hoover. I wish that the hon. Gentleman would urge upon the President of the Board of Trade the necessity of setting up something in the nature of a research bureau to collect and collate information which might be of inestimable value to industrialists in this country, and which they themselves cannot possibly obtain. I have thrown out a few suggestions of a very wide and broad character which probably will not meet with approval on my own side of the House, but I remain quite unperturbed by that fact. I believe that something on these lines will have to be attempted by the Government if this problem, in my judgment the greatest problem that has ever confronted this country, is ultimately to be solved.

Mr. ROSE: I have listened very carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Aberdeen and Kincardine (Mr. Boothby) and I am rather perplexed to determine what it is he has been talking about. I was under the impression that this discussion was about unemployment. It is very few words I have to say, and I am saying them with considerable diffidence, because I do not like the task, although I am very capable of it, of putting everybody right; and I very much regret to say that nearly everybody whom I know has taken not quite the right view of this problem and has not been able to probe the real gravity of it. Members of all Parties are fond of telling each other to face the facts, and are all equally unanimous and equally stubborn in turning their backs upon them. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), who has been giving us some statistics, said in the course of his
remarks that the estimate of unemployment prior to the War was an underestimate. He was quite right. I am sometimes surprised to hear people talking about the "abnormal unemployment" that exists to-day. There is no abnormal unemployment to-day, and that is the tragedy of it. Trade and employment to-day are perfectly normal. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who says so?"] I say so, and I am prepared to demonstrate it.
In 1911 an Act was passed which instituted unemployment insurance for two industries. Whitehall based their calculations of the possibilities of unemployment, on statistics which had been standardised only by the big trade unions which provided unemployment benefit. In 1920 Dr. Macnamara introduced a Bill which was passed, and which brought into registration 12,000,000 instead of 3,000,000 people, but it brought in the unskilled, the seasonal and the casual trades in which unemployment must have been at the mean average of about 15 per cent. taken over a period of years. I have no hesitation in saying that for the last 50 years 10 per cent. has been the normal average of unemployment in this country, and therefore it is 10 per cent. or something over that you have to reckon with in the future. See what else happens. We have been speaking about the coal industry. In that industry, previously to the War, chronic unemployment was absolutely unknown. There was no such thing as an unemployed collier before the War—of course I mean chronically unemployed. A man might be unemployed through being gassed or through some breakdown of machinery or plant, but of what our forefathers used to call the masterless man there was not one. At the present time there are 200,000 unemployed in the coal trade. This House may rest assured that the coal industry will never employ 1,000,000 persons any more because the world's demand for coal is dwindling. This is not caused by competition or the recent lockout, but simply because people are not burning coal as they used to do but are using other means for producing light, heat and power. If that be so, then we have to face the problem of 10 per cent. unemployment year in and year out, a little below one year and a
little above that percentage another year, but over a period of years it will be about 10 per cent.
It does seem to me that this is a far bigger thing than we can approach by pumping out our old-fashioned or our new-fashioned economics. What we want is a little less economics and more humanity because, after all, this is a great human problem. I have been through it myself and I know we old fogies are apt to be tiresome when we start to be reminiscent. I would like to give one recollection. I came out of my apprenticeship on the eve of 1879, one of the blackest years in our industrial history. I had been carefully trained, and I had at my finger ends a highly skilled craft. I had been reasonably well educated. I walked the streets of London for nine months out of the twelve, and I wondered why it was that I, who had been carefully nurtured, highly skilled and possessing average intelligence, was not wanted. It may be that many people will think that a workless year is the only thing that one loses, but there was something more than the nine months lost, because in those nine months there was a moral and a mental decadence which was not made up for in 10 years. Every idle day, every idle week, that happens in the life of an industrious man, means more than the loss of that day's or week's work to the nation; it means a loss to the man, and, in the aggregate, to the nation itself. If this is the best that civilisation can do, we might as well, I think, go back to barbarism. Soon after, it was given to me to sit at the feet of Gamaliel, like Paul—his other name me was William Morris—and since then I have never been afraid or ashamed to proclaim myself a Socialist. I have said on hundreds of platforms, and through other methods of expression, that if in all our millions there is one man who is willing to work and able to work, to whom work is a necessity for him and those who are dependent upon him, and if that man is denied the right to work, that constitutes an anomaly which demands redress. When you multiply it by a million, you do not make the principle one atom worse.
We all admit that something must be done, and you say to us, who represent the people, the employed as well as the
unemployed, "Suggest something,". but when we suggest something you find fault with it. I am quite unlike many of my friends on these benches. I do not think we get very far by denouncing the Government and calling them bad names. I do not think that this is a bad Government at all—I mean, that it is not bad in the sense of being wicked. It is a bit stupid, perhaps, but, of course, we cannot help that. What I urge is that the Government should take up this question with us, not because they are the Government and we are the Opposition. Several speakers to-night have laid some emphasis on the fact that this is not a party question. It has never seemed a party question to me. I do not know whether I am suspect, but certainly I do not want to get any party capital out of it at all. I have been through the thing and have suffered myself personally, and many of my hon. Friends here have suffered very much worse than I have. We are not, however, raising the question from that point of view, and I do not want to suggest now that this is to be a Select Committee of this House that is to chew over schemes of road-making or afforestation, and confine itself to that.
There is another scheme, the one scheme, to my mind, that promises success, and it is in the hands of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. You must increase production. There is only one way to increase production, and that is' by cheapening labour. There is only one way to cheapen British labour, and that is by raising wages. That sounds paradoxical, but it is not; it is a fact, and it can be done. Hon. Members on the other side of the House can do it without any legislation, without any Select Committee; and I would suggest that that is one of the things that might be considered, and that it might be well to see if it did not fit in with the scheme of affairs, apart altogether from what our notions may be of economics. Generally I dislike economics. It is a science the professors of which never seem to be able to agree even on first principles. But I want the thing put straight from the more human point of view. Can we as a nation afford to have everlasting in our life stream millions of bodies that we can neither clothe nor shelter, millions of bellies that we can only fill with the East
wind and millions of hands for which we can find no purpose and no useful object? Is civilisation worth while if it is only a civilisation which has learned to fly and has not learnt to feed itself?

Mr. JOHNSTON: I hope I shall not be accused of discourtesy to the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment if I do not follow in the little debating tricks with which they occupied their time. Every Member on these benches is willing and desirous at any time to justify his belief. We all believe that you cannot possibly get rid of unemployment so long as the capitalist system persists. We all believe it is a stupid system to have a ragged cobbler and a shoeless tailor looking at one another, forbidden to produce for each other's use unless some third party can find a profit from the operation, and on any other occasion we should be very glad to justify our opposition to that social order. But for a few moments let us get back to the Motion before the House. It is to set up a Committee—I will not quarrel whether you call it select or any other kind—drawn from all sections of the House to consider schemes laid before it for the immediate alleviation of unemployment—not ultimate theories about Socialism and Tariff Reform, not ultimate theories about currency reform or any other kind of reform, but practicable proposals; I should not imagine any Committee would pass any non-useful proposal or that the House would endorse it if he did—but that a Committee sitting permanently should examine every kind of scheme of immediate practical importance put before it for the alleviation of unemployment. We are told it would be non-economic. Pray what is your economy? Since the Armistice you have spent £380,000,000 through your Unemployment Insurance Fund and your Poor Law Authorities and this is what you call economy. In 1925, Poor Law relief amounted to 31,250,000, and unemployment, £44,500,000—total £75,750,000—and what have you got for it? Not a tree, not a blade of grass, not one brick laid upon another, and your unemployed kept in a state of semi-starvation, and some of them not even that. Reference has been made to what is called normal unemployment. The "Economist" which some hon. Members opposite are so fond of reading, publishes a book—"Is Unemployment Inevitable?" We get Mr. Layton of the "Economist"
and Mr. Seebohm Rowntree and all the rest of them and they say that for the future there is to be a normal figure of unemployment of from 400,000 to 500,000 persons.

Sir JOSEPH NALL: They are Free Traders and it is founded on Free Trade ideas.

Mr. JOHNSTON: For five minutes let us divest ourselves of these cheap debating tricks. We are to have half a million unemployed for all time, but they are not proposing to be among the half a million unemployed. In my own Division we do not only have 3,805 men signing on at the Exployment Exchange, but we have 754 men signing on at the Employment Exchange, and drawing no benefit. These 754 men have been chased off the Employment Exchange and are costing the local ratepayers 4d. in the pound on the rates. Last year we spent £184,000 in relief and we got nothing whatever in return for it. No words can adequately describe the horror of the position in which these men are placed. There is the daily trudge, the daily search along the streets looking for a master, the failure to find work, the return to their homes where starvation reigns and where the wives and children await them. There is the shake of the head. "No luck." And at the end of it, an early death, tuberculosis, physical, moral and mental waste, and all so stupid and so unnecessary if we would only pool our brains, at least for the beginning, and now, to see what schemes, afforestation or otherwise, we could produce in order to ameliorate the condition of the unemployed and reduce this physical wreckage.
The hon. Member who moved the Amendment said that we were barren of schemes. In the present circumstances and at the present hour I cannot elaborate the matter. He quoted the Report of the Lord St. Davids Committee for last year. What does that document show? It shows that the local authorities of this country have prepared schemes through their city engineers and borough officials. They have submitted no fewer than 18,000 separate schemes for the alleviation of unemployment to the Lord St. Davids Committee, and that Committee
have approved 11,900 of those schemes as being suitable appropriate and economic. What is their comment on the schemes which they have financed?
The results obtained are undisputably of permanent benefit to the localities concerned:
They have spent £40,000,000. That is all that the State have spent in all these years. What have they got for it? They have provided employment—I am now taking full-time employment—for over 600,000 men for a frill year at a cost of £40,000,000. What did the State save? They saved £32,000,000 in the unemployment dole. All that the State lost was a sum of £8,000,000, and in return, on their own figures, they have had works of a capital value of over £104,000,000. They have provided roads, electricity, gas, water, tramways, and sewerage undertakings, docks, harbours and so on. By his method you get something at a very small cost. By your method you get nothing at a very great cost. The hon. Member opposite forgot to tell the House that the present Government have ordered the St. Davids Committee to damp down. They have ordered them to send a circular to the local authorities telling them to send in no more schemes of work, because only in the very worst districts where unemployment is at its maximum density will they be able to de, anything at all. Therefore the present Government far from continuing to find some kind of temporary relief for unemployment have actually discouraged the Lord St. Davids Committee and told them to do practically nothing. It has been repeatedly said that this is net a party question. It is an all-party question. It is no good the seconder of the Amendment coming here to sneer at schemes of social service and to say that we cannot afford them. If we cannot, then what business has the present Prime Minister to put this in his election address:
The Unionist party would be unfaithful to its principles and to its duty if it did not treat the task of grappling with the unemployment of our people as a primary obligation.
It is a "primary obligation" which we are never allowed to discuss in this House. We are never allowed to discuss the merits or demerits of any schemes. The late leader of the Liberal party,
Lord Oxford and Asquith, away back in 1908, said this to a Labour deputation:
We must find a permanent machinery for dealing with these emergencies as they arise. The Government are devoting time and thought to the setting up of permanent machinery which will prevent rather than cure unemployment, at least before it becomes acute.
All parties are united on the principle; let us do something. Here is something we can do, and those who vote against this or any other scheme for relieving unemployment take a very heavy responsibility on their shoulders.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton): I hope the House will forgive me if, in the few remarks I have to make in reply to the Debate, I recall to their notice the terms of the Motion. I can assure hon. Members that I have no intention whatever of indulging in what has been described as flinging about party taunts. I agree with the hon. Member who has just spoken that this is not a party question; it is an all party question, and I do not regret for one moment that the matter has been raised to-night, because, beyond all others, it is the most serious question of our domestic preoccupations, involving in its consequences the deterioration of our young people and the demoralisation of those who are thrown on the streets. I absolutely and entirely agree with that, and therefore the contribution of any hon. Member, whether supporting the Motion or the Amendment, should he treated with respect and regard. The Motion on the Paper, which has been supported by the hon. Member who moved it, by the hon. Member who seconded it, and by the hon. Member who has just spoken, but by nobody else on the other side of the House, asks that a Select Committee should be appointed to consider schemes of work of national benefit which would provide employment for unemployed persons, and to report on such schemes.
All those hon. Gentlemen, it is clear, were of the opinion that the promotion of schemes and the provision of money from the taxes or the rates with which to finance them, would of themselves be of advantage. I have often heard the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. Trevelyan Thomson) urging exactly the same point of view.
Other hon. Gentlemen think that other methods would he more advantageous in dealing with this question. If the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) were here, he would say that the most valuable contribution to the solution of this problem would be the taxation of land values. Another hon. Member urged the importance of developing Imperial Preference. Others urged the Safeguarding of Industries and the McKenna Duties. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has urged that there should be an absolute prohibition of the import of goods made by sweated labour. All these various contributions must be taken and considered. But the question which the House has to consider to-night is whether any provision of money for relief schemes would be good or bad, and, secondly, whether the Select Committee referred to in the Motion is a suitable and proper way of dealing with the question.
I have no doubt whatever, from the evidence which is forthcoming from many quarters, that the time has arrived when the provision of large sums of money for relief schemes would do far more harm than good. If it were necessary to call in aid evidence in support of that view, one could not have stronger evidence than that contained in the Report of Lord St. Davids Committee, which has been mentioned. The last speaker referred to the large sums of money which had been expended or sanctioned by that Committee. He pointed out that a very large number of men have been found employment during the six years that it has been in operation. But the important part of the Report of that Committee is this. It says:
Broadly speaking, it would appear that the scheme which has been in operation for six consecutive winters has, largely for that very reason, passed the period of its greatest utility, and that, if pursued indefinitely to the same extent as in the past, it would be difficult to avoid subsidising works properly undertaken by the local authorities in in the normal course of their business, and in such cases but little would be added to the sum total of work performed in this country.
Therefore in the view of that Committee, composed of entirely independent and very distinguished people, to continue in the future what has been done in the past would add but little to the sum total of work performed.
But they say something further. They say:
In so far as the present schemes might continue to be evolved, there is the further objection that they might well have the tendency to divert capital from the normal trade developments, which are now to be looked for, and would thus hinder rather than assist the relief of unemployment through the proper channels of trade recovery.
It is all very well for the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) to twit my hon. Friend who sat beside me because he referred to speeches of the Leader of the Opposition, but the Leader of the Opposition and everybody who has considered this matter and who has been brought face to face with it have come to exactly the same conclusion. It was a conclusion which was arrived at so long ago as 1906 by Mr. Burns. It was a view which was expressed by the Leader of the Opposition directly he took office and it is the view expressed by the Report of this Committee. Everybody, who has been brought face to face with it, is driven, whether he likes it or not and whatever his preconceived opinions may be, to the conclusion which I have indicated.
But there is another consideration which I wish the House to bear in mind. It was brought very vividly to my mind by the very moving speech of the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Rose). In truth and in fact, these schemes of relief, whether they employ many men or whether they employ few, do not, and cannot for the most part, employ those whom we would most desire to help. I mean, of course, the skilled artisan, the man who has spent four years in a trade, and who is thrown out of work. At best they only employ for the most part the casual and unskilled labourer. They may have this further effect. They may actually operate and no doubt they do operate in the very opposite way to which one would desire them to operate because, by increasing the burden either on the taxes or on the rates, they go far to prevent the trade recovery for which those skilled artisans may benefit.
I would like to say one word on the point which is raised in this Motion, and it is also very relevant to the speech of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon
Boroughs. The Motion definitely asks that this should be referred to a Select Committee, which shall report at intervals, not exceeding one month, during the sitting of the House. Some hon. Members—certainly the hon. Members who moved and supported this Motion—were disposed to agree that that would be a happy and successful way of producing what we would all like to produce, a non-party political atmosphere in dealing with this matter. I would ask the House to consider whether that would or would not help that desired effect. A Select Committee of this House reflects the parties in this House. It is made up, of course, according to the numbers of the various parties in the House, and it is a sort of microcosm of the House itself. Would a scheme referred to such a Committee be likely to bring about the result which is expected? In the first place, it must be remembered that a Select Committee cannot under any circumstances make a minority report, and, therefore, the report goes forth to the House as the report of the whole Committee. But the Government in power, whether it be a Labour Government or a Conservative Government or a Liberal Government, must, of course, be responsible for finding the money for carrying out these schemes. Therefore, when you get back to the House, it is, and it must be, the Government of the day that has the responsibility for dealing with these schemes. After giving the matter the best consideration of which I am capable, I cannot think that this proposal; which is novel but which is none the less entitled to respect and consideration because it is new, would have the effect which the hon. Gentleman who moved the Motion expected.

Mr. HARRIS: What is your alternative?

Mr. BETTERTON: I think the hon. Member is echoing the question which was put to me by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. The right hon. Gentleman appears to have fm gotten that the Labour party, when in office, took, as I think, the very wise course of setting up a Committee known as the Balfour Committee with the widest terms of reference. The terms of reference were, broadly speaking, to inquire from every point of view into the causes of our present depression,
and to suggest means by which that depression could be overcome. The length of time which it has taken the Committee to make its inquiry is some indication of the magnitude of the problem. To set up now another Committee, whether a Select Committee or any other kind of Committee, before we have the Report of the Balfour Committee, would seem to me to be an absolute waste of time. Unemployment, as everybody knows, is not a static thing. It varies in different industries at different times, but one thing is quite certain, and it is that no one remedy is sovereign for the evils from which we are suffering. It may be that, under certain conditions grants for relief work are justifiable, and

Division No. 36.]
AYES.
[11.0 p.m.


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hayday, Arthur
Sexton, James


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hayes, John Henry
Shepherd, Arthur Lewis


Ammon, Charles George
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Baker, Walter
Hirst, G. H.
Sitch, Charles H.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertilltry)
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Barnes, A.
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Barr, J.
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)


Batey, Joseph
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Snell, Harry


Bondfield, Margaret
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Broad, F. A.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles


Bromfield, William
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Stamford, T. W.


Bromley, J.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Stephen, Campbell


Brown, James (Ayr and Butt)
Kelly, W. T.
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Buchanan, G.
Kennedy, T.
Sullivan, J.


Cape, Thomas
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Sutton, J. E.


Charleton, H. C.
Lansbury, George
Taylor, R. A.


Clowes, S.
Lawrence, Susan
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Darby)


Compton, Joseph
Lawson, John James
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro, W.)


Connolly, M.
Lee, F.
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Cove, W. G.
Lindley, F. W.
Tinker, John Joseph


Cowan, D, M, (Scottish Universities)
Lowth, T.
Townend, A. E.


Crawfurd, H. E.
Lunn,-William
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.


Dalton, Hush
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R.(Aberavon)
Viant, S. P.


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Mackinder, W.
Wallhead, Richard C.


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
MacLaren, Andrew
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen


Day, Colonel Harry
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Dennison, R.
March, S.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Duckworth, John
Maxton, James
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Duncan, C.
Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)
Wellock, Wilfred


Dunnico, H.
Montague, Frederick
Welsh, J. C.


Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)
Morris, R. H.
Westwood, J.


England, Colonel A.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Fenby, T, D.
Mosley, Oswald
Wiggins, William Martin


Gardner, J. P.
Naylor, T. E.
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Gibbins, Joseph
Oliver, George Harold
Williams. C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Gillett, George M.
Paling, W.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Williams, T (York, Don Valley)


Greenall, T.
Pethick-Lawrence, F, W.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Potts, John S.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Grenfell, D. H. (Glamorgan)
Purcell, A. A.
Windsor, Walter


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Womersley, W. J.


Groves, T.
Rlley, Ben
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Grundy, T. W.
Ritson, J.



Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Robinson, W. C.(Yorks, W.R.,Elland)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hardie, George D.
Rote, Frank H.
Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.


Harris, Percy A.
Scrymgeour, E.
Whiteley


Hartshorn, Rt. Hon, Vernon
Scurr, John





NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)
Atholl, Duchess of


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley


Alnsworth, Major Charles
Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Balfour, George (Hampsteed)


Albery, Irving James
Astor, Maj. Hn. John J.(Kent, Dover)
Barnett, Major Sir Richard

we believe that under certain limited conditions they are justifiable, and the St. Davids Committee is still considering such cases. This much I can say: While one remedy or another and one method or another may do something—migration has been referred to and Imperial development has been referred to—I am certain Members in all parts of the House will agree that without something like peace in industry, all these remedies will be of no account.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 142; Noels, 252.

Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Gunston, Captain D. W.
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake;
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
Penny, Frederick George


Bethel, A.
Hanbury, C.
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Betterton, Henry B.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Perkins, Colonel E. K.


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Boothby, R. J. G.
Harrison, G. J. C.
Philipson, Mabel


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Hartington, Marquess of
Pilcher, G.


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennlngton)
Pownall, Sir Assheton


Braithwalte, Major A. N.
Hawke, John Anthony
Price, Major C. W. M.


Brass, Captain W.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Radford, E. A.


Briggs, J. Harold
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxt'd, Henley)
Ralne, W.


Briscoe, Richard George
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Ramsden, E.


Brittain, Sir Harry
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Reid, D. D. (County Down)


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. J.
Herbert. S.(York, N.R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Remer, J. R.


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Hills, Major John Waller
Rentoul, G. S.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham)
Hilton, Cecil
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C.(Berks, Newb'y)
Hogg, Rt. Hon.Sir D.(St.Marylebone)
Rice, Sir Frederick


Buckingham, Sir H.
Holland, Sir Arthur
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Holt, Captain H. P.
Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)


Bullock, Captain M.
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Roberts, Sir Samuel (Heretord)


Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Ropner, Major L.


Butler, Sir Geoffrey
Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.


Butt, Sir Alfred
Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Colonel C. K.
Salmon, Major I.


Campbell, E. T.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney. N.)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Carver, Major W. H.
Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd,Whiteh'n)
Sandeman, A. Stewart


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Hume, Sir G. H.
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.)
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Sandon, Lord


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Hunting field, Lord
Savery, S. S.


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Scott, Rt. Hon. Sir Leslie


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)
Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)


Churchman, Sir Arthur C.
Jacob, A. E.
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley


Clarry, Reginald George
Jephcott, A. R.
Shepperson, E. W.


Clayton, G. C.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)
Skelton, A. N.


Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir G. K.
Kindersley, Major Guy M.
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon


Coltox, Major Win. Phillips
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine,C.)


Cope, Major William
Knox, Sir Alfred
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Couper, J. B.
Lamb, J. Q.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Courtauld, Major J. S
Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.
Lister, Cunliffe-. Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)


Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn. N.)
Little, Dr. E. Graham
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Looker, Herbert William
Storry Deans. R.


Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Lougher, L.
Stott, Lieut-Colonel W. H.


Crookshank, Cpt. H.(Lindsey, Galnsbro)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere
Streatfeild, Captain S. R


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Styles, Captain H. Walter


Davidson, J.(Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)
Lynn, Sir R. J.
Sugden, Sr Wilfrid


Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.
Mac Andrew, Major Charles Glen
Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
McLean, Major A.
Tasker, R Inigo.


Davies, Dr. Vernon
Macmillan, Captain H.
Thorn, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)


Dawson, Sir Philip
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Edmondson, Major A. J.
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell


Elliot, Major Walter E.
Mac Robert, Alexander M.
Tinne, J. A.


Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Maltland, Sir Arthur D. Steel
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Everard, W. Lindsay
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Margesson, Captain D.
Waddington, R.


Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Fermoy, Lord
Macon, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)


Fielden, E. B.
Merriman, F. B.
Watts, Dr T.


Finburgh, S.
Meyer, Sir Frank
Wells, S. R.


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Milne, J. S. Werdlaw
White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple


Foster, Sir Harry S.
Mitchell, S. (Lanarx Lanark)
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


Fraser, Captain Ian
Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Frece, Sir Walter da
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)


Ganzonl, Sir John
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Gates, Percy
Moore, Sir Newton J.
Winby, Colonel L. P.


Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Glimour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Withers, John James


Goff, Sir Park
Murchison, Sir Kenneth
Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater)


Gower, Sir Robert
Nail, Colonel Sir Joseph
Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)


Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)
Nelson, Sir Frank
Wood, Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Grant, Sir J A.
Neville, R. J.
Young, R. Hon. Hilton (Norwich)


Greene, W. P. Crawford
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)



Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H.(W'th's'w,E)
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)
Nicholson, O. (Westminster)
Mr. Cadogan and Mr. Geoffrey


Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Peto.


Grotrian, H. Brent
Nuttall, Ellis



Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E. (Bristol, N.)
Oakley, T.

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

Mr. SCURR rose—

It being after Eleven of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

The remaining Orders were read and postponed.

Orders of the Day — CHINESE NATIONALS (VISAS REFUSED).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Mr. BECKETT: I desire to raise the question of the exclusion from this country of Mr. Chen Kuen and Mr. Lian Hansin, two very distinguished Chinese citizens, who were anxious to come to London for a certain purpose which I hope to explain to the House. I choose this opportunity of raising the matter, because I felt that it conveyed too great an implication upon the methods in which we are conducting the affairs of the Home Office that it should be dealt with at Question time, in spite of the curt answers which were given to me by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is usually so courteous. The position is that one of these gentlemen is a member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, which is the party responsible for governing more than one half of China at present. The other gentleman is a member of the All-China Trade Union General Council. I and friends of mine in the House had the very great pleasure of a long discussion with these gentlemen in Brussels at a conference which they were both attending some weeks ago. Speaking for myself and my friends, we were very greatly impressed with the broad, intelligent and constructive outlook, and especially with the friendly attitude towards this country which those two gentlemen showed.
There were with me the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) and the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson), and we felt that, if these gentlemen had come to this country they should have been given an opportunity of coming into this building, and we would have done our best to summon a meeting of all parties in this House—
because I do not think any Member of this House is so intolerant as to refuse to listen to a distinguished Chinaman, even though he disagreed with him—as we felt it was vitally important that the point of view of the Chinese Nationalists should be understood, even if it were not agreed to, by Members of all parties this House. To our very great surprise, we heard not long afterwards that these gentlemen had made their application and that for no good reason the Home Office had refused their visas.
I protest against such an arbitrary method of judging who is to come into this country. There is no Government in control of these men who would have told our own Home Office that they were not desirable people to come here. I do not know whether the Home Office exclude members of the Communist party who come from other countries, but that would not apply 'to these gentlemen, because they are not members of the Communist party, and from considerable conversations which we had with them, they are, I should say, at least as far removed from the Communist ideaology as some of the hon. and gallant Members who sit on the benches opposite.
It is quite true that they have been in touch with Moscow, just as the hon. and gallant Gentleman or his Government have also been in touch with Moscow, and as representative men in every country throughout the world, whether they agree with Moscow or not, have got to be in touch with Moscow. If some of the hon. Gentlemen who have just been laughing had been in Brussels they would have been just as delighted to meet them as to meet anyone else who was present. It seems to me not only narrow-minded and insular, but that the action of this Government is going to have a very serious effect upon that large part of advanced Nationalist opinion in China which is by no means unfriendly to this country provided it is persuaded that it can get a square deal. They will not be persuaded that they are getting a square deal when two members of the Central Executive, for no reason given, are refused admission to the country. If hon. Members are half as confident in the justice of their cause as they would wish us to believe, they certainly would not be afraid of two China-
men and an interpreter coming to the House of Commons to address them, if they would be kind enough to attend and listen. If you admit them they can do you no damage. If you do not, you administer a slap in the face to the whole of the rigth wing of the Kuomintang in China. I do beg of the hon. and gallant Member, if he is going to refuse this request to allow these two men in, that in the interests of our good name amongst people with whom we do not altogether agree we may at any rate be given some solid and sufficient reason for it, and that he will not treat my request in the very peremptory and despotic manner—I know it is through no fault of his own—in which he dealt with the question yesterday afternoon.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Captain Hacking): This debate has arisen as the hon. Member has remarked out of what he describes as the "curt reply" which I gave to a supplementary question of his when he asked me if I would give the reasons for a decision that had been reached to keep two Chinese citizens out of this country. My reply was:
No, Sir. It is not necessary to give reasons. The discretion is in the hands of the Home Secretary."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1927; col. 819, Vol. 203.]
To that answer I adhere. To that answer I have very little to acid. The Secretary of State derives his authority from the Aliens Restrictions Acts, 1914 and 1919, as continued by the Expiring Laws Continuance Act. Under those Acts Statutory Rules and Orders have been made. One of them under the heading of "Admission of Aliens," reads:
An alien coming from outside the United Kingdom shall not land in the United Kingdom except with the leave of an immigration officer.
It continues:
Leave shall not be given to an alien to land in the United Kingdom unless he complies with the following conditions, that is to say.
I am not going to quote them all, but just those which really matter—
He has not been prohibited from landing by the Secretary of State.
The Secretary of State has prohibited them, and he is quite in order in refusing permission to these two Chinese subjects
to land. These individuals have not complied with the Regulation, which says that they must
fulfil such other requirements as may be prescribed by any general special instructions of the Secretary of State.
In the cases of certain nationals, not only Cantonese, but other nationals, including Chinese, the Secretary of State has prescribed that they must carry British visas on their papers when they come to this country. These Chinamen have been refused permission to land and have been refused visas, and they will not be allowed to land under the Regulations which I have quoted. There is nothing in the case I have quoted or in the Statutory Rules or Orders which even suggests that my right hon. Friend should give reasons for any action which he may take in regard to particular cases.
The only reason why these Chinamen desire to come here is to further certain political aims, and take part in subversive propaganda. The Secretary of State is not going to allow them to land here for that purpose, tending as it must to overthrow our present Constitution. The original question asked by the hon. Member stated that they were anxious to come to this country to discuss the Chinese situation with certain British citizens and not with members of the House of Commons. That indicates a few citizens. I would suggest to the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Beckett) and his friends that, if they desire to continue these discussions, they should have them in Brussels, and not here. A suggestion was made in the second supplementary question when he said:
Are we to understand that the Cantonese Government is regarded as an unfriendly Power."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1927; col. 819 Vol. 203.]
That is a suggestion that we are taking sides against the Cantonese. If I may use a vulgar phrase I should say that it is pure unadulterated nonsense. Are we to assume that if we refuse leave to land to a certain Frenchman that we are taking sides against the French Government or French nation; or are we to assume in the case of refusing leave to an Italian or American that we are taking aides against America or Italy. There are certain undesirable people in every
country, unfortunately in our own, and that view is not held by Great Britain alone, but by every country in the world. It is only because, in our opinion, these particular Cantonese—not the whole Cantonese people, not the whole Chinese people—are undesirable, so far as this country is concerned, that the Secretary of State has determined that they shall not land upon our shores. The whole administration of the Aliens Act of 1920 regarding visas and otherwise, is at the sole discretion of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. But there are many occasions, which are well known to this House, when that discretion may be called to account by Parliament; and if any action which the Home Secretary may take at any time is considered by this House to be wrong he can be dealt with as any other Minister of the Crown can be dealt with by this House. I personally, however, am firmly convinced that he will weather this storm, as he has weathered many other storms, and that his action will receive the full and complete support of those Members in the House who really have the interests of the British nation at heart.

Mr. LANSBURY: The hon. Gentleman in one part of his statement took pains to state that it was only to interview certain people in this country that these two Chinese citizens were asking to be allowed to come here. He knows, or he ought to have been told, that they were invited here by the London Trades Council. [Interruption.] The London Trades Council may be an insignificant body in the opinion of the hon. Member, but they are a body of citizens who are as much entitled to ask people to visit them as any Conservative association. It has been specifically stated to the authorities that the object of the visit was to enable them to meet representative people and put the views of the Cantonese side of the Chinese dispute before us. Although the Home Secretary has all these powers, think the House is entitled to ask the
hon. and gallant Gentleman to tell us on what evidence he bases the statement that these two Chinese citizens are not fit people to come to this country. We were engaged to-night in voting a large sum of money to force the Chinese people to allow certain British citizens to remain there. Here are two citizens of that country simply asking to be allowed to come here to meet British citizens, and they are refused without any evidence being given to the House as to why the Home Secretary considers them unworthy to come here.
I attended the gathering where this was discussed. I have no doubt some of the paid spies of the Department were present. When travelling one gets accustomed to the espionage of the British Government. I can pick out the man who sat with us in the hotel and I challenge the Home Office to produce the report, because, if he gave an honest report he would give exactly the report the hon. Member has given. We said to them, "We think the finest thing that could happen for you is that we should get a gathering of all sections of the House of Commons to hear your side," and you are afraid to allow them to do it.

Mr. DENNIS HERBERT: I think I am right in saying that the lion. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) said that these Chinese gentlemen wanted to come here to put the point of view of the Cantonese. I have always understood that the party opposite objected, as we on this side object, to the Government of this country taking sides in the Chinese quarrel—

Miss WILKINSON: Hearing their point of view is not taking sides.

Mr. HERBERT: What party is it in this country that wishes to advocate the side of one party in China?

It being half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.